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Author
This book should be returned on or before the date
last marked below.
THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
There will be no copyright in this book after 1957 A, C. Translations
into other languages may be made freely from this very
time. There will be no copyright against them ; but
neither must there be any copyright reserved
in those translations.
THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
AN ATTEMPT AT AN EXPOSITION OF THE FIRST
PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE OF THE SELF, I.E.,
Adhyatma- Vidya
BY
BHAGAVAN DAS
M.A., (Calcutta), LL. D. hon. causa (Benares and Allahabad)
Author of " The Science of the Emotions,"
" The Science of the Sacred Word,"
" The Science of the Self,"
" The Essential Unity of All Religions," etc.
(Third Edition) '*
1948
The Theosophical Publishing House
Adyax, Madias, India
First Edition, 1904
Second ,, 7927
1948
Brahma-bindu Upanishaf
1 Words strung together in compilations, serve only to
protect and hide knowledge, as husk and chaff the grain ; let
the wise look for the grain and cast away the chaff of words
when that grain of truth has been found.'
1 Woulclst thou enclasp the beauty of the True ?
Let pass the word ; the thought, the thought pursue ! '
Maulana Rum
" Live neither in the present, nor the future, but in the
Eternal, . . . because nothing that is embodied, nothing that is
conscious of separation, nothing that is out of the Eternal,
can aid you ; . . . within you is the light of the world ....
'Read the larger word of life.'*
Light on the Path
" There is a peace that passeth and yet passeth not the
pure understanding. It abides everlastingly in the hearts of
those that live in the Eternal."
3tfc*?R, flc
3?Tc*TT
I ska Upanishat, 6, 7
' He that seeth all things in the Self, and the Self in all
things, he thenceforth doubteth and sorroweth no more/
Vlll
seekers after a final solution of the ultimate problems of
life, who are not content with the solutions now extant.
I believe that such an endeavour deserves sympathy; I
believe that it will be more successful if I have the help
and co-operation of sympathetic friends than if it were
left to my own unaided resources ; and I believe that you
can and will give such help effectively. This help from
you is the more needed as the many distractions of a life,
which past karma has thrown along the lines of office and
the business of the householder, rather than those of
literary pursuits and the studious leisure of the scholar,
have, prevented me from making this work anything more
than the merest outlines of the all-embracing subject of
metaphysic, well defined as ' completely unified know-
ledge,' treated therein and those outlines too, full of
immaturity of thought, possible extravagance of express-
ion, and certain lack of the finish of scholarship.
" I therefore pray that you will look through this
little book and, unless you think it wholly useless for the
purpose mentioned, will send it back to me after having
noted on the blank pages all obscure or doubtful and
debatable or positively inaccurate and inconsistent state-
ments of fact, falseness or exaggeration of sentiment, and
confusion or illogic of arguments and marshalling of
ideas, that you may notice."
Suggestions for improvement were received in
chronological order from : Pt. Ganganath Jha, Pro-
fessor of Samskrt, Muir Central College, Allahabad ;
Babu Govinda Das, of Benares (my elder brother) ;
IX
Dr. Hiibbe-Schleiden, of Dohren bei Hannover, Germany ;
Dr. J. H. Stirling, of Edinburgh ; Prof. J. E. McTaggart,
of Trinity College, Cambridge ; Pt. M. S. Tripathi, Author
of A Sketch of Vedanta Philosophy, of Nadiad ;
P. T. Shrinivasa lyengar Esq., M.A., Principal, Narsingh
Row College, Vizagapatam ; J. Scott Esq., M.A., Principal,
Bahauddin College, Junagadh. Ayodhya Das Esq., B.A.,
Barrister-at-Law, Gorakhpur ; Pt. Sakharam G. Pandit,
Branch Inspector, Theosophical Society, Benares ;
Pt. Bhavani Shankar, Branch Inspector, Theosophical
Society, Benares ; M. Andre Chevrillon, of Paris ;
B. Keightley Esq., M.A., Barrister-at-Law, of London.
I gratefully record the names of these friends, person-
ally known or not known, but most truly friends in the
spirit and helpers in a common cause.
But far more than to all these friends are this book
and I under obligations to Mrs. Annie Besant, who first
saw the rough draft of the work in manuscript, encour-
aged me to persevere with it, then carefully went over
every line of the printed proof-copy, suggested innumer-
able improvements, and finally saw it through the press.
BHAGAVAN DAS
Benares, 1904.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
THE work has been out of print for nearly four years.
But the demand for it has continued. Hence this second
edition. The text has been altered but little, though
revised carefully. Further considerations, explanations,
solutions of difficulties, answers to objections, have been
supplied in additional notes.
Some friends have queried, Why the name, The
Science of Peace ?
It is only a rendering of a recognised and significant
Samskrt word for the Vedanta, viz., Moksha-shastra,
which means, literally, the Science of Deliverance,
Freedom.
Science is organised knowledge, knowledge which
recognises similarities in diversities and arranges groups
of facts in specified relations with each other. Such
sciences, of the finite, are pursued because they, in some
way or other, minister to finite human needs. This
ministration is their function. All organisation is for a
purpose, towards the fulfilment of which the function of
each organ in that organisation helps.
The most comprehensive Science is the most com-
pletely organised, unified knowledge, which sees not
merely similarities in diversities, but, co-ordinating and
Xll
summing up all sciences in itself as Brahma-vidya the
* great science ' and the ' Science of the Infinite/ sees
the Absolute Unity of Life in and through all the many-
ness of forms, whereof what has been called the organic
unity of Nature is the expression ; it sees the One Self
at the central heart of all things, and all things radiating
from that central heart ; and the purpose of this great
and ' true vision,' this samyag-darshana, is the fulfil-
ment of that deepest, that infinite need of the human
being, viz., the Peace of mind that arises out of freedom
from all doubts and consequent sorrows, out of the
eternal assurance of deathless self-dependence.
Hence Moksha-shastra, of which The Science of
Peace is an equivalent, and of the conclusions of which
this work constitutes one way of presentation.
The Science of the Sacred Word, or the Pranava-
vada of Gdrgyayana may be regarded as a continuation
of this work. Other compilations of the writer illustrate
the same underlying principles in different aspects. The
Science of the Emotions deals with the nature and culture
of the feelings in the light thereof, in the same terms of
Self and Not-Self and the desire-aspect of the Relation
between them. The Science of Social Organisation, or
the Laws of Manu, and The Science of Religion or
Sanatana Vaidika Dhanna, show the application of
those same principles (in terms of the three aspects of
the Relation and consequent three temperaments and
psycho-physical types of human beings, viz., intellectual,
active, and emotional) to the planning out and
xin
administration of the affairs of individual, as well as
communal, human life ; to civics, politics, and law-
religion, in other words ; and various pamphlets endeavour
to show their bearings on current problems.
To help, however feebly and haltingly, in the inter-
pretation of the ancient and the modern, the Eastern
and the Western, to each other ; in the restoration of
spiritual insight to material science ; in the passing of
this revived spirituality into the new forms of Science
and Art, ideals and aspirations, laws and conventions,
that the turning of the wheel of time makes inevitable ;
in dealing with modern problems in the light of the
Ancient Spirit and bringing about a true synthesis of
the many components of the human race and an effective
and lasting ' balance of power ' between the many in-
terests, classes and factors of human society, ' clerical,'
political, financial and industrial this is the general
purpose of all these compilations, in continuation of the
immediate and obvious special purpose of each.
The great quality of the purpose is the only redeemer
of the little quality of the compilations.
Benares BHAGAVAN DAS
28th February, 1919.
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
ALL the matter of the previous edition, text and
notes, has been retained in this. But verbal improve-
ment has been attempted. Long sentences have been
cut into short. There has also been endeavour to make
the meaning clearer where it was obscure. Considerable
additions have been made to text as well as notes, by
incorporation of material which had gathered, in the
twenty-six years elapsed since the last edition, as manus-
cript notes on the margins of my personal copy, sug-
gested by books read during this period.
A reason for the name, The Science of Peace, was
mentioned in the preface to the second edition. Another
is that the book endeavours to make Peace between all
possible views and opinions which seem to conflict, but
cannot really do so, since they all are in the Same Con-
sciousness. The principle of reconciliation, stated
repeatedly in text and notes, is, ' Vision Changes with
angle of vision ', ' Difference of viewpoint makes differ-
ence of view ', ' Duty differs with circumstance ', " New
occasions make new duties ", " The old order changes,
yielding place to new ". Also, head, heart, and limbs,
knowledge, desire, and action, are reconciled, Rational-
ism, the philosophy of the head, mysticism, the aspiration
XVI
and longing of the heart, Practicalism, the activity of
the limbs, all are unified here. (Spirituo-Material)
Science- Devotion- Action, Jnana-Bhakti-Karma, are all
shown to be inseparable aspects of One and the same
Life; Conflict is only Apparent, Eternal Unity and
Peace is Real. This reason is only subsidiary to the
first-mentioned, because without peace between head,
heart, and limbs, there is no peace for the soul.
Yet another reason is that this book essays to make
Peace between ancient eastern Vedanta and modern
western science. The former tells us that the moving
Universe is a Mirage, Illusion, Myth, Mithya, Maya.
The latter tells us that Law reigns in Nature. Upanishats
speak of n i y a t i , ' fixed law, fate, destiny, d i s h t a ,
and also of Yadrchchha, chance. But current
V64anta has forgotten it all. A New Age, of " The
Federation of the World and the Parliament of Man "
requires a new statement of the Ancient-most Philosophy
as Foundation, Inspiration, Ideal, Guide and Director.
This Philosophy must be one which reconciles the
Yadrchchha- Wilfulness-Self-will of Dream-Play
with the Indefeasible Rule of Law. That Meta-Physic
is not Meta-Physic which does not include all Physics
within 'itself. That Self is not In-finite which does not
include all finite selves and all not-selves within It. That
Freedom is not Supreme Freedom which does not include
all bonds, all law-and-order. This reason, again, is also
only subsidiary to the first; for western Science and
eastern Philosophy represent age and youth, Pursuit and
XV11
Renunciation ; and without Peace between the two,
younger generation and older, there cannot be Peace
within the home. Also, it is patent that both states come
to each soul, one after another, in succession. As a
western writer has well said :
" For a scientific theory to be final, the mind would
have to embrace the totality of things in block, and
place each thing in its exact relation to every other
thing ".
Reconciliation of all religions particularly has been
attempted in another book by this writer, The Essential
Unity of All Religions. Reconciliation of all sorts of
views, as well as of all 'religions, has been attempted in
Hindi, in Samanvaya, by him.
From one standpoint, this whole book may be re-
garded as a feeble endeavour to expound more fully some
aspects of " the fundamental propositions " and " the
basic conceptions " stated on pp. 79-85 of Vol. I of
H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, (Adyar Edit ion) . %
* Print-order ' for the first forme of the present edi-
tion was sent to Adyar on 1-1-1945, three years ago.
Conditions created by the second World War, paper-
famine, enormous increase of all costs, going away of
press-workers to other occupations, are responsible for
spreading over three years, work which, normally, should
have been completed in three months or at most six. In
the meafitime, the writer has grown older (from seventy-
six to seventy-nine years of age), his eyes weaker, and
xvin
memory more slippery. Consequently, his proof-correction
has not been efficient ; and there are many repetitions,
some of which were not necessary; though, probably,
each repetition, in its new setting, discloses a new aspect,
or exposes more fully an old one, of the subject ; and this is
Nature's way too ; also of Itihasa-Purdna. Such mistakes
as are likely to cause doubt and perplexity to the reader,
have been noted in the Corrigenda which are placed
before the text, (not after, as is usually done), to enable
the reader to make the corrections before he begins
reading. To come at them after he has finished the
book, with doubts and perplexities unsolved, is too late,
and of no use.
My gratitude is due, in the first place, to Mr. K. S.
Krishnamurti, Manager of the Theosophical Publishing
House, who decided to take up the work of a new
edition, despite the immense difficulties created by the
conditions above referred to ; in consequence of which
some projected appendices have been dropped also. My
thanks are also due to the Press as a whole for bearing
patiently with my bad habit of making many additions
and alterations in the second galley-proof, and, very
rarely though, in the page-proofs also. My gratitude to
Miss Preston and Mr. Henry van Zeijst, who have
revised the Indices, is more fully stated in the note
prefixed to them.
BHAGAVAN DAS
MEND, O Master !, with Thy perfectness, Thy servant's
imperfection, lest any earnest seeker after Truth be led
astray by error of his. Subtile is that utter Truth,
though all so simple, very difficult to set on high so it
shall shine out strong and clear and steady, and very
feeble for such purpose is the hand that would now do
so. Guide Thou that hand aright.
CORRIGENDA
(Only such errors are noted and corrected below, as are
likely to cause perplexity or misunderstanding. These
corrigenda are placed before, the text begins instead of after
it ends, as is usually done in order that the corrections may
be made before the reader begins perusal).
PAGE
LINE
FOR
READ
9
heading
First
Second
14
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15
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32
18
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68
14
Carried
endeavoured to
carry
83
heading
Examination
explanation
122
19
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129
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seets
sects
149
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heading
IX
VIII
170
19
spirits
spirits, Dhyan
Chohans
191
22
as in
as also in
-
23
also Glta
Glta
CONTENTS
(Headings, placed on top of every page, supplement
this Table of Contents abundantly.)
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THK GREAT QUFSTIONING
Vairagya. world-surfeit, of Nachiketa and his question
to Yama, ruler of the Prta-worlds - Vairagya of Mai^rcyl
and her question to Yajrfavalkya Vairagya of Rama
and his question of Vasishtha. Quest of the soul after
immortality and self-dependence , its shrinking from anni-
hilation and from dependence on the mercy of another.
NOTE : Psychical Autobiography .... 1
II THE FIRST AND SECOND ANSWERS :
Craving of the jiva for a synthesising unity Its first
finding, viz , creation by a Personal First Cause , and its
worship thereof. Failure of this finding to bring per-
manent peace The jiva's further search and second
finding, viz., evolution by the interplay of two co-eternal
factors , a philosophy without a religion Failure of this
second finding. NOTE Three theories of Causation . 6
III. UNCERTAINTIES.
The main quest. Many subordinate questions.
Correspondence between answers to the mam and sub-
ordinate questions NOTE : The sempiternal longing . 11
IV. PRELIMINARIES OF THE THIRD AND LAST ANSWER.
SELF AND NOT-SELF ;
Existence of Self. Nature of Self. Its immortality.
Self not compound or multiplex, but the sole source, sub-
strate, refuge, of the compound and multiplex. Uni-
versal solipsism Self not definable in terms of anything
limited and particular. Self not commonplace nor yet
anything mysterious or mystical. Meaning of enquiry.
Direct and indirect knowledge. --The nature of the Not-
Self .The partial peace of Pratyag-atma, the Self . 21
XX11
CHAPTER PAGE
V. MUTUAL RELATION OF SELF AND NOT-SELF :
The kind of relation desired between Self and Not-Self,
viz., such as will make Not-Self wholly dependent on
Self. No enquiry needed as to origin of Self. The
only need of thought is to free Self from dependence on
Not-Self, to derive the changeful from the changeless.
Attempts to formulate the relation. Dvaita Vedanta, only
another form of the theory of creation, hence also a
failure. Vishishta-Advaita Vedanta, only another form of
the theory of evolution by the interaction of two factors,
hence also a failure ...... 43
VI. MUTUAL RELATION OF SELF AND NOT-SELF (Con-
tinued) :
The same results in terms of European philosophies.
The inspiration of Indian thought, ethico-rehgious know-
ledge for the sake of happiness That of modern Euro-
pean thought, mostly intellectual and epistemological :
knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Locke's finding :
there is nothing in the intellect which was not previously
in the senses. Leibnitz's addition ' except intellect
itself '. Berkeley's finding . the csse of matter is its
pcrcipi. Hume's finding ; the converse Consequent
restoration of the problem to the status quo, but on a
higher level. Kant's finding a mental thing-in-itself
prpjecting ' forms ' and a material thing-m- itself project-
ing ' matter,' ' sensations ' Consequent aggravation of the
problem. Subsequent attempts of Fichte and others to
unify two thmgs-in-themselves of Kant. Schelling's in-
ference of the Absolute from the Relative Hegel's work.
Its defects Fichte's explanation of World-Process in
terms of Ego and Non-Ego. Its general similarity
with the views of Acjvaita Vedanta : Determination
of nature of Ego by the method of adhyaropa-
apavada, abscissio infimti, postulation -negation. The
last difficulty. Need to justify the very fact and nature
of change at all, and to combine both change and
changelessness in the Absolute. Attempts of Rosi-
crucians in this behalf. Logia, great sentences, of
Veda, as employed by Advaita Vedanta. NOTE I :
Pantheon of Philosophers.- NOTE JI : Comparison of
Hegel, Fichte, and Vedanta . . . .52
VII. THE LAST ANSWER :
Eulogy, in Scripture, of AUM as last answer.
A hypothesis as to real meaning of Aum as thus
eulogised. The logion, ' Ego Non-Ego Non,' as real
XXlll
CHAPTER PAGE
meaning of the three-lettered Aum, and as final ex-
planation of World-Process. Approaches to this logion
in current Upantshats and Puranas. Most significant
form of this logion, ' Aham Etat Na, 1 ' I-This-Not '.
Joy of the finding. NOTE I : No appeals to Scripture.
NOTE II : Some more ancient texts . . 108
VIII. BRAHMA OR THE ABSOLUTE THE DVANDVATITAM :
Changelessness in the logion. Change within it.
Method of World-Process, and of all thought, the same,
viz., abscissio mfimti. Presence of all that is needed,
of all contradictions as well as of their reconciliation by
mutual abolition, within the Absolute So-called indescn-
babihty of the Absolute due not to powerlessness but to
completion of thought. Correction of Hegel by V6danta.
Many names of the Absolute. Reason for the name
Param-atma given to Brahma. NOTE A few more
ancient texts, Vedic and Buddhist . ... 138
IX. DVANDVAM THE RELATIVE :
(A) PRATYAG-ATMA SELF
Nature of Pratyag-atma and its identity with all jivas.
Distinction between It and Brahma Nature of Self
with reference to Time, Space, and Motion. An illu-
stration, by 'Sound Sleep'. Genesis of the three attributes
of Pratyag-atma, viz., Sat-Chit-Ananda, Being-Con-
sciousness-Bliss, corresponding to Kriya-Jnana-Ichchha,
Action-Cognition-Desire. Tn-une-ness of the Absolute <
reflected in these three attributes. Worship of the Self . 158
X. PVANUVAM THE RELATIVE (Continued) :
(B) MULA-PRAKRTI NOT-SELF, MATTER
Various significant names of Mula-prakrti. Its essential
nature and characteristic. Consequences ensuing from
that nature. Birth of the world's endless diversity (a) of
pseudo-infinite particulars, (b) in pairs, (c) mutually and
positively opposed, and so always abolishing each other.
Meaning of arbitrariness ; its absence from the World-
Process taken as a whole. Continuum of the World-
Process, in consequence of indivisibility of the Absolute,
appearing in the fact that everything is everywhere and
always. False assumption by Not-Self of the charac-
teristics of Self, infinity, eternity, etc. Explanation of
why two or rather three parts are distinguishable in the
Partless Logion. Meaning of 'Illusion'. Safeguards pre-
sent in the Logion itself against all possible impeachments.
XXIV
CHAPTER PAGE
Why Matter is Uncreatable and Indestructible.
Mutual balancing of increase and decrease, action and
reaction. Some suggested lines of thought. How Three
Moments are distinguishable in the partless Absolute.
Their simultaneousness despite succession. World-
Process a device for reconciliation of antinomies of the
reason. Distinction between ideal and real, thought and
thing, abstract and concrete. Special attributes of Mula-
Prakrti, viz., Sattva-Rajas-Tamas, Cogmsability-Mobility-
Desirability. corresponding to Guna-Karma-Pravya,
Quality-Movement-Substance. Universal presence of all,
with predominance of one of these three. Worship of
Not-Self .NOTE : How Metaphysic illuminates all . 172
XI. PVANDVAM THE RELATIVE (Continued) :
(C.i.) SHAKTI- ENERGY AND NEGATION AS THE
RELATION AND THE CAUSE OF INTERPLAY BETWEEN
SELF AND NOT-SELF.
Significance of Negation, in permutations of the
logion. Various facts and beliefs corresponding to the
permutations. Affirmation and Negation involved in
Not. Consequences in shape of laws of alternation
and rhythm. Chakra, wheel, of Pravrtti and Nivrtti,
Pursuit and Renunciation. Pseudo- infinite cycles. Law
and breaches of law subsumed under ever wider law.
. Necessity of the Changeless Nature of the Absolute, as
embodied and described in the logion, the one Cause of
all causes. Meaning of Cause. The Whole the Cause of
each Part. Metaphysic of Free-will. Necessity as
Maya. Etymology of Maya. Correspondence between
evolution of a language and a whole world-system.
Connection between Maya-Shakti and Negation. Shakti
as might, power, energy, etc. Its three attributes, viz.,
Avarana-Vikshe'pa-Samya ; attraction, repulsion , balanced
alternation , Srshti-Sthiti-Samhara, creation-preservation-
destruction Vidya, Ayicja, Mahavidya, Science, Nesci-
ence, Wisdom. Worship of Shakti. Confusion as re-
gards Shakti and Prakrti in current Samskrt works
Para, A para, and Daivi Prakr.tis. NOTE : Real mean-
ing and correspondence of Sattva-Rajas-Tamas and other
triads . . . . .199
XII. DVANDVAM THE RELATIVE (Continued) :
(C. ii.) SHAKfl-ENERGY AND NEGATION AS CONDI-
TION OF INTERPLAY BETWEEN SELF AND NOT-SELF.
Cause and Condition. Distinction between them.
Various kinds of causes. Their common chararteristic.
XXV
CHAPTER PAGE
Shakti as cause and Negation as condition. Three attri-
butes or aspects of Negation, vtz. t Space-Time-Motion-
Their genesis and correspondence with the primal trinity.
Variability of such correspondence.
(a) Space. Space as coexistence. Triple aspects of
Space, viz., (I) Side-beside-between, (2) inner-outer-
through, (3) point-radii-sphere, etc. Pseudo-infinite
dimensions of space. Worlds within worlds. Symbology
(b) Time. Time as succession Its triplicities, viz ,
(1) begmning-end-middle, (2) Past-future-present, (3)
Moment-period-cycle Personal immortality. Variations
of correspondence. Symbology. Interchange of aspects
between the Puranic Gods.
(c) Motion. Motion as interweaving of co-existence
and succession. Its triplets, viz., (1) Mergence-emerg-
ence-recurrence, (2) approach-recess-revolution, (3) linear-
rotatory-spiral, etc. -Various aspects of motion. Various
significant ways of describing motion. Symbology.
Unresolvable mutual immanence ond synchronousness of
all trinities and triplets. Co-inherence of all such trini-
ties, that is to say, of the whole of Samsara, in each
jiva-atom, each composite of Self and Not-Self. Solution
of the riddle that all is everywhere and always NOTE I .
The World- Drama needs Tragedy as well as Comedy.
NOTE II Meaning of Immortality , all jivas are equal.
nay, the same. 297
XIII. JIVA-ATOMS (A) GENERALLY
A resume. Genesis of the jiva-atom. Its general
negational attributes, viz., Size-Life-Vibration. Defini-
tion of atom. Of jiva. Adhyasa, mutual reflection
or superimposition of each other's characteristics. Um-
versals, singulars, and particulars-individuals. Animate,
inanimate, all un-inanimate Organic, inorganic, all-
organic. Chemico- physical affinities, psychic sympathies,
psycho-physical parallelism. Significance of distinction
between animate and inanimate Life, death, necro-
biosis. Meaning of death. Soul, body, and causal
envelope ; Sthula-Sukshma-Karana, gross-subtle-causal ;
inner-outer-relational. Nucleus-protoplasm-c a p s u 1 a r -
network. Pseudo-infinite planes within planes and
sheaths within sheaths. Birth, death, rebirth. Patence,
latence, development. The Absolute. Animate nature,
inanimate nature, Virat-Purusha Individuals within
individuals. Various theories of physical science tending
towards the same view. Need of judging things by their
mutual proportion. Birth of facts from laws. NOTE :
Support of Metaphysic by Physical Science . . 333
XXV!
CHAPTER PAGE
XIV. J!VA-ATOMS (B) OBJECTIVELY, i.e., ATOMS:
Other aspects and sub-divisions of Size-Life-Activity.
Volume, form, measure : large-small-average, long-
round-ovoid, linear-square-spherical, etc. Primary form,
sphere, including all possible other forms.- Figure-
symbology Period, filling, rate : long-short-average,
wen-filled-ill-filled-occupied, fast-slow-even, etc. Ex-
tent, rate, degree: great-little-mean, bigh-low-even, in-
tense-sluggish-equable, etc. Reason of these triple
subdivisions, Their simultaneity and nothingness. Un-
disturbedness of the Absolute. Other triplets under Mind
and Matter ; increase-decrease-equality and liberality-
narrowness-tolerance ; growth-decay-coutinuance and
pursuit-renunciation-equanimity ; expansion-contraction-
rhythm and pleasure-pain-peace. Characteristic attributes
of atom, i.e., of matter, viz., Dravya-Guna-Karma.
Correspondences with other triplets. Nature of Guna,
and its correspondence with Chit. Subdivisions of
Guna. Proprium, accident, attribute. Concrete instan-
ces of essential properties. Of accidental qualities. Of
attributes generally. Psychological nature of sensations.
-Pseudo-infinity of senses and sensuous qualities. All
attributes present everywhere and always. Nature of
Karma. Why it corresponds with Sat Its subdivisions.
Expansion, contraction, vibration . Karmic gunas, gum'c
karmas, etc., eg., velocity, dullness, movement, etc.
Nature of Dravya, mere 'this-ness'. Its corres-
pondence with Anancla Utter inseparability of the three
aspects of matter, Dravya, Guna, and Karma, or ' This,
Such, and Thus '.Subdivisions of Dravya. Positive
weight, negative weight, dead weight , heavy, buoyant,
resistant, etc. Why Dravya corresponds with Ananda
and Tamas.- Reason of variations in correspondence.
Simultaneousness as well as succession of all these sub-
divisions Concomitance of the three aspects helpful in
reconciling many conflicting theories of physical science.
Appearance of qualities, apparently exclusively cognis-
able 'by one sense only, in the objects of all the senses,
Vedantic doctrine of quintuplication of all sense-
elements. Parallel changes of aspects. Pseudo-infinite
varieties of Guna. Of Karma. Of Dravya. Pseudo-
infinite variety of dimension, duration, and vibration of
atoms. Reconciled by existence of planes within
planes ....... 360
XV. JiVA-ATOMs (C) SUBJECTIVELY, / e., JIVAS .
Subjective aspects of Size, Life, and Vibration, viz.,
range, intensity, calibre, etc., as appearing in inner
\xvii
CHAPTER PAGE
life of Consciousness Nature of Consciousness. In
what sense the word Consciousness describes Brah-
ma. A re-statement of genesis of three aspects of
individual consciousness, viz., cognition, desire, and
action. Their subdivisions. Cognition and action in
terms of each other. Multifarious triplets arising under
each. Mutual superimposition of attributes between Self
and Not-Self. Pseudo-infinite multiplications, radiations,
and cognitions between selves and not-selves. Metaphysi-
cal nature and genesis of organs of sense and action.
Metaphysic of sense-media, ether, air, etc. Significance
of concentric mvolucra, sheaths, upadhis, bodies, of
jiva, with special reference to cognition. Nucleus and
nucleolus. Synthesis of pseudb-infinity of planes
Method of the synthesis, by triplets of planes or worlds.
Interpretation of Tri-bhuvanam. Why scriptural state-
ments are capable of many interpretations, all equally
true " As above so below ". Distinction between Inner
and Outer, Ideal and Real, Thought and Thing. Illustra-
tion, How and Why this distinction. Metaphysical
meaning of Memory. Self or Self-consciousness as
reason, and reason or buddhi, as sutra, thread, network of
laws of the World -Process, and web of life of individual
organisms. Individual participation in Universal Omni-
science. An illustration Latent and Patent. Meaning
of ' Ideality ' Illustrations. Individuality, a ' present '
which includes a ' before ' and an ' after ' Metaphysical
significance of Sukshma-Sharira. Relation of subtler
to denser planes of matter, e g. t of ether to gas, gas to
water, etc., similar to relation of Fratyag-atma to
Mula-prakrti. Words having universal as well as special
and local significance. Illustrations. Corollaries. Ap-
parently disconnected planes found to be graded together
from higher standpoints. Dimensions of space. Expan-
sion of Consciousness. Meaning of Yoga . . 399
XVI. SUMMATION :
The Universal, the Singular, and the Relation between
them. Certain difficulties of ambiguity Suggested
restrictions of connotation Reconciliation between
Nominalism and Realism, etc. Manifestation of Self
in language. Synthesis of discrete facts by the princi-
ple of Individuality. Definitions of jiva-atom and
brahm-anda in terms of the Absolute. Illustrations.
Essential and complete sameness of all jivas. Apparent
difference and separateness made by mere variation of
order of experiences. Why order of experiences
varies. Balancing of pleasure and pain. Bhartr-han's
XXVU1
CHAPTER PAGF
saying. Real significance of sameness of all jivas
The converse ' reality ' of appearance of difference and
evolution of jivas from so-called lower to so-called higher
stages and involution vice-versa. The wonder of the
diversity of the world and the Peace of Sameness amidst
the Turmoil of Change. Conclusion . . . 466
DEDICATION .... 496
INDEX OF WORKS REFERRED TO . . 499
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES . . . 505
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKKT Woitns . .511
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT QUESTIONING
" THE dread doubt that seizeth the beholders when a
man passeth away, so that one sayeth, ' He still is,' and
another, * No, he is no more ' I would know the truth
of this, taught by thee, O Death ! This I crave as the third
of the three boons thou promised ! '*
This is the boon that Nachiketa asked of Yama,
Master of Death, Judge of departed souls. And Yama
shrank from the great task imposed on him and an-
swered : " Even the gods have suffered from this doubt,
and very subtle is the science that resolveth it. Ask
thou another boon ! Besiege me not with this. Take all
the pleasures that the earth can give ; take undivided
sovereignty of it ! " But Nachiketa : " Where shall all
these pleasures be when the end comes ! The pleasures
are no pleasures, poisoned by the constant fear of Thee !
1 Katha-Upanishat, I, i. For the full story of Nachiketa, his
seeking and his finding, see the Upanishat.
2 BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH [SCIENCE OF
The gods too suffer from the doubt, for they are only
longer-livea and not eternal ; and that they suffer is but
reason why I would not be as they. I crave my boon
alone. Nachiketa asks not for another."
" If all this earth with all its gems and jewels were
mine without dispute, should I become immortal ? " So
Maitreyl questioned Yajna-valkya when he offered wealth
to her at parting. And Yajna-valkya answered : " No,
thou couldst only live as the wealthy live* and die as they.
Wealth brings not immortality ! " Then Maitreyl : " What
shall I do with that which makes me not immortal ? Tell
me what thou knowest brings assurance of eternity." 1
So Rama also asks Vasishtha : " The books that say
that Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesha are the three highest
gods that rule our solar system, say also that they die.
Brahma, the highest-seated, falls ; the unborn Hari dis-
appears ; and Bhava,teource of the existence of this world,
himself goes into non-existence ! How then may feeble
souls like mine find peace and rest from fear of death and
change and ending ? " *
" To be dependent on another (to be at the mercy of
another, to be subject to the relentlessness of death) this
is misery.. To be Self-dependent this, this is happiness." 3
Thus, instinctively in the beginning, consciously and
deliberately at ths stage when self-consciousness and
1 Brhad-Aryanyaka-Upamshat, II, iv.
2 Yoga-V&sishtha, Vairagya Prakarana, xxvi, 29. For the full story,
see the present writer's Mystic Experiences, (Talcs from the Yoga-
Vasishtha).
8 Manu t iv, 160.
PEACE, CH. l] SPIRITUAL DISTRESS 3
intelligence are developed, the jlva 1 feels the terror of
annihilation, and struggles to escape from it. into the
refuge of some faith or other, low or high. And in such
struggles only, and always, hegin religion and philosophy,
each shade of these according, step by step, with the
stage and grade of evolution and intelligence of the jlva
concerned.
But when this fear of death of soul and body, this
fear of loss and change and ending, pervades t-hc in*
telligent and self-conscious jlva ; when it destroys his joy
in the things that pass, makes him withdraw from all
the old accustomed objects of enjoyment, and fills him,
for that time, with sadness and disgust and loathing
for c all the possible means of pleasure that ever hide
within their lying hearts the means of pain ; when it
leaves him naked and alone, intensely conscious of his
solitude and sorrow, shrinking violently from the false
and fleeting show of the world, desolate with his own
misery and the misery of others, longing, yearning,
pining, for the Permanent, the Eternal, the Restful,
for a lasting explanation of the use and- purpose, origin
and end, of this vast slaughter-house, as the whole
world then seems to him to be then is that searching
soul passing through the fires of burning thought, reflection
J Jiva means a separate self, a spirit 01 sonl, a living thing, an
individual unit, vortex, point, focus or centre of latent or evolved con-
sciousness, a single part, so to say, of the Uni \ersal Self, a dew-drop
image of the Sun, passing from the mineral through the vegetable and
animal into the human and superhuman kingdoms ; here of course a
human soul or spirit. See quotation from Yoga-V&sishtha t II, xix, in
ch. iv, f.n., p. 29, infra.
4 STAGE IN LIFE WHEN IT BEGINS [SCIENCE OF
and discrimination between the Transient and the
Permanent; of passionate rejection of all personal and
selfish pleasures and attachments in himself as well as
others; of the self-suppression, the intense quiescence and
compassionate sadness, of utter renunciation ; and of a
consuming, ever-present, craving and travailing for the
means of liberation, from that seeming slaughter-house,
for himself and for all others ; then is he passing through
the fires that shall purify him and make him worthy of
Ved-anta, of that ' final knowledge ' which he craves, and
which alone can bring him peace and fit him for the
work that lies before him. Then is his consciousness,
his individuality, his personal self, focussed into an in-
finitesimal point, and, thus oppressed with the feeling of
its own extreme littleness, is it ready for the supreme
reaction, ready to lose itself and merge into and realize
the All-Consciousness of the Infinite and Universal Self.
Why, and at what stage of his evolution, this most
fearful and most fruitful mood comes necessarily on every
soul, will appear of itself, when, later on, the mystery of
the World-Process has been grasped and understood. 1
NOTE. The first six chapters of this work constitute, in
a way, the psychological autobiography of the writer. They
describe the stages of thought through which he passed to the
finding embodied in the seventh chapter. And they have been
written down only as a possible guide-book to travellers along
1 Many western mystics, poets, philosophers, have experienced and
described this mood ; to name one, Tolstoy, in How I came to Believe,
gives a very vivid picture of his own v a i-r a g y a, passionate disgust with
the world, and v i-v 6 k a, search for the Eternal as distinguished from the
Fleeting.
PEACE, CH. l] PSYCHICAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5
the same path. All the opinions and beliefs criticised in them
and, for the time, left behind, in order to pass further on, have
served as staging-places to the writer himself, have been held
by him closely for a longer or a shorter time, and then, tailing
to bring lasting satisfaction of the particular kind that he was
seeking, have been passed by. But this does not mean that
the staging-places and the rest-houses have been abolished, or
are of no use. They continue to exist, will always exist,
and will always be of use to future travellers. No deprecia-
tion of any opinion whatsoever is ever seriously intended by
the writer. Indeed, it is a necessary corollary of the view
embodied in the seventh and subsequent chapters of the work,
that every opinion, every darshana, every * view/ catches
and embodies one part of truth ; and he himself now holds each
and every one and all of the opinions that appear to be refuted
in these preliminary six chapters but he holds them in a
transmuted form. Each form of faith, each rite of religion,
each way of worship, has its own justification. If the
writer has unwittingly used, in the passion of his own struggle
qnwards, any words that are harsh and offend, he earnestly
begs the forgiveness of every reader really interested in the
subject, and assures him that if he does think it worth while
to read this book through systematically, he will realize that it
verily endeavours, not to depreciate any, but to appreciate all
thoughts, and put each into its proper place in the whole world-
scheme. The ' well-established conclusion/ the siddhanta,
of Indian thought is that as 3?r^fR^|^ qjft^:, so seW^T^
SRFT^i, as ' duty varies with the individual's position,' so ' the
view, the opinion, varies with the angle of vision, the situation,
the point of departure ' ; but the ' final view/ of Vcd-anta, from
the ' universal ' standpoint, includes^all views.
The italicised words, ' and for all others ', p. 4 1. 8
above, make mumuksha equivalent with bodhi--chitta
of Buddhist philosophy. Spirit of holiness, holiness of spirit,
is love for all, compassion for all who are suffering. The
objection that some persons feel tired of life, do not fear death,
indeed welcome it, is answered in ch. ii of The Science of
the Self, and pp. 51-52 of The Essential Unity of All Reli-
gions. If any persons really do not want any philosophy, or
6 CRAVING FOR FREEDOM FROM FEAR [SCIENCE OF
religion, surely none need be, none ought to be, none verily
can be, forced on them. From the point of view of this work,
ihe impelling motive, p r a - y o j a n a, * final cause ', of the
search for philosophical Truth, is not intellectual curiosity,
but profound heart-cra\mg for Freedom, Freedom from Fear,
the essence of which Fear is Fear of Privation and Death at
the hands of Another than Self. To rise in triumph above this
Fear, sensitive and steadfast souls seek That which is beyond
all Death, ^ f ^ sftfcNfa <4kT:, 3$^fa, cTCST, 3?^%*,
(Upan.), " with abstinence from sense-indulgences, ascetic
ways, and intense meditations that make them forget even the
need for nourishment of body."
CHAITKR U
THE FIRST AND SECOND ANSWERS
THUS we find that the j I v a doubts and asks for immortal-
ity alone, and in the doubting and the asking, he ever
instinctively feels that the answer lies in a basic ' Unity '
of some sort or other, and that peace can never be found
in an unreconciled and conflicting * Many '. This feeling
conditions his search throughout, for reasons inherent in
him-Self and in the World-Process, as will appear later.
As the Gitd (xiii. 27) says : " Only when the soul sees
the Many rooted in the One and aiso branching out from
that One, does knowledge become complete and perfect,
does the Infinite become fulfilled and realized in that soul,
does the soul identify itself with the All-Self, Brahman."
PEACE, CH. Il] THE FIRST FINDING 7
The first answer that the soul shapes for itself to
the great question, the first tentative solution of this
overpowering doubt, is* embodied in the view which is
called the arambha-vada, 1 the theory of a begin-
ning, an origination, a " creation of the world by an
agency external to the questioner and to the World ".
From so-called fetish-worship to highest deism and
theism, all may be grouped under this first class of
answer.
Instinctively or intelligently, the j I v a sees that effects
do not arise without causes ; that what is not effected by
himself must be caused by another ; that he himself (as
he then regards himself) is an effect, and that his cause
must be another ; that whatever is the more permanent,
the older, is the cause of the temporary, the younger ;
and he finally infers and believes that his well-being,
permanence, immortality, lies in, is dependent on, his
cause, his Creator. From such working of the mind arise
the multifarious forms of faith, beginning with belief in,
and worship of, stone and plant and animal, and ending
in belief in, and worship of, a personal First Cause. The
general form and meaning of worship is the same through-
out, i.e., prayer for some benefit or grace. The accompany-
ing condition of worship is the same also, viz., giving
J Paficha-dashi. xin, 7.
Hoffchng's statement, " according to the popular conception of the
causal relation, one thing is the cause, another thing the effect, " is an
almost literal translation of this verse ; (Outlines of Psychology, p. 209.)
8 ITS INSUFFICIENCY [SCIENCE! OF
assurance of humility in order to evoke benevolence
in the object of worship, by prostration and obeisance and
sacrifice of objects held most dAr, to prove (sometimes,
with cruellest immolation of others or of self, though at
others with a most beautiful and most noble self-surrender)
that they are not held dearer than that worshipped
object.
This first answer is a religion as well as a philosophy,
but the jlva finds not rest for long therein.
The concrete material idols fail again and again, and
so does the mental idol. The incompatibility of evil and
suffering with a being who is at once omnipotent, omni-
scient, and all-good ; l the unsatisfied need for an explan-
ation why a personal being who is perfect should create
a world at all, 9 and how he can create it out of nothing
as he must, if it is not to be coexistent with and so at
least to some extent independent of him these distressing
doubts, insoluble on ' the theory of a beginning,' that
have always shaken faith, first in the power and goodness
of the creator, and then in his very existence. Inevitably,
earlier or later, they wrench the earnestly-enquiring jlva
away from his anchorage in that theory, and set him adrift
again, again a-searching.
The truth that underlies this first answer, in all its
forms, he will discern again when he has obtained what
he now wants so urgently.
| Shankara, Shariraka-bh­a, II, i, 34.
* Ibid.. II, i, 33.
PEACE, CH. Il] THE FIRST FINDING 9
His next haven of rest, the second answer, is the
parinama-vada, 1 or vikara-vada, 2 the theory of
change, transformation, evolution and dissolution, by the
interaction of two factors. By a great generalisation he
reduces all the phenomena of the universe to two per-
manent elements, present always, universally, under all
circumstances, throughout all the changes that he sees
and feels.
The materialism and agnosticism which believe in
* Matter and Force ', and declare all else unknown ; the
ordinary Sankhya doctrine of * Purusha and Prakrti, ' (or,
rather, an infinite number of Purushas and one Prakrti),
* Ego and non-Ego,' * Self and not-Self,' ' Subject and
Object ', ' Spirit and Matter ' all fall under this second
category. Most of the philosophies of the world are here ;
the variations as to detail are endless, but the view that
the universe is due to two finals, is common to them all.
At this stage, if the duality be made the basis of a
religion at all, the believer proclaims the factor of Good
as superior to the factor of Evil, and assigns^to it a final
triumph, regarding God as prevailing over Satan. Hor-
muzd over Ahriman, Purusha over Prakrti, Spirit over
Matter, in a vague undefined way, sacrificing strict logic
1 Pancha-dasht, xiii! 8.
I " One and the same thing pas-
sing into a new state, as milk becoming curds ; clay, pots , gold, ear-
rings this is parinama." Compare Hoffding, loc. cit., p. 212,
' * Cause and effect are members of one and the same process ' ' .
- Vedanta-sara.
10 ITS MANY DEFECTS [SCIENCE OF
to the instinctive need for Unity, which, as said before,
conditions the search throughout. But where the two
are seen as equal, as in the Sankhya, religion vanishes, no
practice corresponds to the theory. Thus, the Sankhya
system describes Purusha as ' lame,' and Prakrtt as ' blind/
helping each other, apparently, for the purpose of (each
feeling it- k self' alive, existing, in) the Play of the
World- Process, but in reality opposed in nature. The
struggle between the two weakens both ; each factor
neutralises the other. There is no worship in the absence
of a One Supreme to worship. Only philosophy remains,
a belief, wavering and satisfactionless. An explanation
by two eternals, a plurality of infinites, each unlimited
and yet not interfering with the unlimitedness of the
other, though existing out of and independently of it ;
with, furthermore, their interplay governed by Chance
such an explanation is no explanation at all. If it is
said that these many eternals and infinites exist, not out
of but, within each other, that they pervade and permeate
each other, then the k explanation ' becomes yet more
unintelligible. It is all a contradiction in terms ; it is
mere arbitrariness ; there is no order, no certainty, no
law, no reason in it. However correct it may be as a
generalised statement of indubitable facts, viz., an end-
lessness of Spirit and an endlessness of Matter, those
facts themselves remain unexplained, unreconciled, im-
possible to understand.
The truth that underlies this belief also will appear
when the final ans\\er is found.
PEACE, CH. Ill] THREE THEORIES OF CONSATION 11
NOTE. The arambha-vada corresponds to what in
modern psychology has been called " the popular conception
of causality"; (Hoffding's Outlines of Psychology, V D).
Hoffding's own view may be described as the scientific notion
ot causality, corresponding to the parirjiarna-vada. The
final or Vedantic notion, including, yet transcending, the other
two, known in Samskrt as vivarta-vada, adhyasa-
vada, and also as abhasa-vada, may be described in
modern terms as the metaphysical notion of causation, not
yet recognised and accepted in the west ; though some
thinkers approximate. Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Bradley,
Koyce, Green, Caird and others, catch different aspects of it.
Vivarta-vada is the * doctrine of reversal, opposition,'
because the Changing World-Effect is the illusory opposite of
the Changeless Consciousness- Cause ; also, perhaps, because,
while the Sankhya concludes that Nature-Matter-Prakrti is
One, and Souls- Forces- Purushas infinitely Many, the Vedanta
reverses the conclusion, and holds that the Spirit is One, and
Matter Many; adhy-asa is 'baseless im-post-ure, super -
jm-positiou, or sup-position/ ' false imputation/ of attributes
and qualities which do not exist; a-bhasa is 'illusory
appearance '. The full significance of this third and last
answer will appear, later on. See ch. xi, infra.
CHAPTER III
UNCERTAINTIES
TENTATIVE, temporary, full of uncertainty and full of
questioning is this stage. Baffled in his efforts to under-
stand the World- Process completely ; barred out from a
perfect religion-philosophy, a system of knowledge which
would consistently and directly unify and guide his
thought, desire, and action, head, heart, and limbs, in
12 THE ONE GOAL [SCIENCE OF
this life and all lives to come ; unable to rest peacefully
in a mere incomplete knowledge, in a mere belief which
remains outside of his daily life and is often coming into
conflict with it ; the j I va goes back again and again to
that earlier answer, which, if only belief, only incomplete
knowledge, is yet a religion also, a religion-philosophy,
however imperfect. But each such going back is only
the preliminary to a still stronger going forward. The
jlva is now in the grasp of an indefeasible reflective-
ness, of a craving of the intellect that may not be
repressed. 1 He has attained his majority and must
now stand on his own feet ; his parents may not
fondle him in their lap any longer. And so he pro-
gresses onwards through and from the second stage,
driven by doubts, harassed by heart-oppressing questions.
What is really sought by the soul, is the supremacy
of a One, and that One, My-Self ; for so alone can My
immortality be assured. But the jlva has only begun
seeking. It is full of the sense of its own weakness. It
cannot at once leap to the knowledge and certainty of its
own supremacy. In the a r a m b h a , the beginning, of its
search, it can reach only the arambha-vada, viz.,
1 f^fa, v i v 6 k a , ever-present discrimination between the Transient
ancf the Permanent ; and f^R, vichara, ever-present reflection on the
Why and Wherefore of things, whence arise the 31*T, shama, <<[*?,
d a m a , etc. , which are part of the traditional qualifications of the seeker
after truth, the student of Veclanta, the aspirant for the final knowledge
(or, illumination, experience, including knowledge, emotion, will) and for
m o k s h a , freedom (from doubt and error and all ills ; for all ills, wants
and pains and restlessness, are but the consequences of Primal Error, as
will appear later on.)
PEACE, CH. inj MANY UNCERTAINTIES 13
that there is a Supreme One, who is other than me, yet
is so identified with me by His karuna, compassion,
that He will ensure me a share of His own Immortality
ultimately, and that present miseries are only tests and
trials. In such belief, the j I va instinctively feels that Love
is the comparatively outer expression of the Fundamental
Inner Unity. But this ' first ' answer is not only in-
tellectually illogical ; it is also emotionally full of in-
security. It satisfies neither head nor heart. Where is
the ground for unshakeable Eternal Faith ? How can I
trust that this God, outside of me, different from me, will
never be other than benevolent to me ? His present con-
duct to all His creatures, all around is it not \iery cruel,
very non -benevolent ? Nay, the answer leaves me worse
off than before. I am longing for ' freedom ' from ' fear
of another '. This answer makes me utterly dependent
on the mercy of another. It completes my servitude.
I have been created out of Nothing by Another, at His
Will. I can be annihilated into Nothing by that Other,
at His Will-full Caprice. " Better to reign (be Self-
dependent) in hell, than (be Other-dependent) slave in
heaven ". The pari -nama, transmuted result of such
critical scrutiny of the * first answer ', is the second, the
pari-nama-vada; but that also turns out, on similar
close examination, to be no less devoid of certainty of
knowledge and assurance of feeling. Two even finite
things cannot occupy the same space ; much more, two
Infinites ; they would be constantly limiting, finit-ising,
struggling to oust and abolish, each, the other.
14 HOW ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY? [SCIENCE OF
The main object of the soul's quest is but this : " How
shall I make sure of my Eternity ? " " How shall I be
freed from fear of death ? " " How shall I obtain salva-
tion, ab-solu-tion, from all ills ? " Yet in the searching,
he has trodden many paths which have allured him
with promise of profit ; have sometimes made him forget
for the time being the goal of his enquiry ; and have even,
now and then, led him to a short-lived peace and confi-
dence in blind unreasoning or ill-reasoning faith, or in
agnosticism, assertion of the impossibility of final know-
ledge and the futility of all search. And all these paths
he has discovered again and again to be blind alleys.
Each only leads to a new question and a new \\all of diffi-
culty. All the questions await solution by means of the
one supremejeolution only. The whole labyrinthine maze
leads him back, again and yet again, to the same starting-
point. The whole can be mastered and traversed in con-
fidence by means of only a single clue/
*
1 Manyness is patent, all around. One-ness is not so evident. But
the craving for a Unity which would enmesh all Multiplicity without
destroying it, is inherent in the human soul because it is Itself the Final
Unity, and yearns to regain what it feels it has lost. Search for assurance
of this Final Unity is Meta-physics, ' beyond-physics '. This same craving
and search for unity, on limited, but ever larger and larger, scales, is
manifest in all departments of human life, political, economical, social, edu-
cational, scientific, religious. Humanity is obviously travailing, with the
agony of world-wars, to give birth to a Unified World- Federation,
World Order, World Organisation of the whole Human Rac a Univer-
sal Scientific Religion, a World Economy, a Universal Culture- Voca-
tional Education, a Universally intelligible Language and readable
Script , not to abolish particularity, variety, individuality ; but only to co-
ordinate and reconcile all such, by only sub-ord mating them all to
Unity ; only to introduce a well-recognised and well-corned minimum of
uni fbrmity amidst qpi equally well-recognised and well-corned multi form-
itv. Detailed illustration of this travail, in respect of all life-aspects, is
not possible here ; but any thoughtful observer can see for himself, how
PEACE, CH. Ill] SOUL-STRUGGLE 15
The many doubts and questions which thejlva
gathers and which all lead up to and merge in the one
great question, are mainly these 1 :
What am I ? and Whence ? and Whither bound ?
and Why ? what is Spirit, Self, Ego, Subject ? what are
these other selves, jlvas, like and unlike myself? what
is Matter, the World, Not-Self, Not-I, non-Ego, Object ?
what is Life ? what is Death ? what is Motion ? what are
Space and Time ? what is Rest ? what arc Being and
larger and larger concepts, combines, mergers, have been and are sub-
suming under themselves, smaller units, of all sorts, in all these aspects
of life That the results achieved, from time to time, have always been
breaking down, with regresses, is due to the fact that the seeking of unity
has been mostly governed by the false self of separatist egoist individ-
ualism, whence periodical revolts and rebellions by the units sought to
be forcibly absorbed, perpetual conflict, and recurring great wars between
larger and larger groups headed by stionger and stronger ' individuals '.
Only Metaphysics, which is Spiritual Philosophy, Psychology, Science,
Keligion, all in one, can lead to the desired result, by teaching to Mankind
at large, how the desired Unity should and can come willingly and
eagerly from within, peacefully, creating world-wide Concord, instead of
being imposed from without violently, whence world-wide Discord.
J For crowds of such questionings, see, eg., Sarva-vitra and
Ntrqlambct Upanisliats also Shvefitshvatara- Upamshat, Rg-vcda
X. 1.21. and Atharva-veda X n. Why refer to so many other questions,
when the one "that has to be directly dealt with, is " How can the j i va
avoid sorrow and secure happiness ' ' ' Because whole and parts are inter-
dependent ; no part can be fully understood until all other parts are
understood, and the relation of all to each and each to all, and of each
and all to the whole and the whole to each and all, is understood,
generally In other words, until the whole- is understood, nothing is
understood, really. To secure my happiness, I must find out the causes
and conditions of my joys and sorrows , these are connected with
' objects, the objective world ', and with other j i vas and their joys and
sorrows. It becomes indispensable, therefore, for me to find out the exact
nature of all these (which may all Le classified under the three categories
of the I or ' Subject ', the not-I on 4 Object ', and the Relation between
them, in order to secure my essential happiness. To prescribe properly for
the disease of any one organ, the physician must have knowledge about
all organs of the body, and their inter- workings), generally. Compare
the current saying, " to know every thing about some one thing, and
something about every other thing, is" culture ".
16 COUNTLESS DOUBTS & QUESTIONS [SCIENCE OF
Non-Being? what is Consciousness? what is Uncons-
ciousness ? what is Pleasure ? Pain ? Mind ? Body ?
What are Knowledge, Knower, Known ? Sensation ?
Senses ? what are the objects sensed, the various elements
of Matter ? what is the meaning, use, necessity, of media
of sensation ? what is an Idea ? what are perception, con-
ception, memory, imagination, expectation, design, judg-
ment, reason, intuition ? what are Dreams, Wakings, and
Sleepings ? what are Abstract and Concrete ? what are
archetype, genus, and species ? what are universals, partic-
ulars, and singulars ? what is Truth ? Reality ? Illusion ?
Error ?
t
What is Desire ? what arc the subjects and the
objects of desire ? what are Attraction and Repulsion,
harmony, and discord ? what is an Emotion ? what are
Love and Hate, pity and scorn, humility and fear ? what
is Will ? what, it any, is Free-will ?
What are Action, acted on, and actor ? what are
Organs ? Organism ? what is the meaning of stimulus and
response, Action and Reaction ? what is the real meaning
and significance of power, might, ability, force, or
Energy? what is Change, creation, transformation, evolu-
tion, dissolution ? what are Cause and Effect, Accident
and Chance, Necessity and Destiny, Law and Breach of
Law, Possible and Impossible ?
What is a Thing ? what are Noumena and Pheno-
mena ? what are essence, substance, attribute, quality,
quantity, number ? what are One and Many, some and all,
Identity and Difference ? What is Thought ? are thought
PEACE, CH. Ill] SHALL HE GIVE UP ALL HOPE ? 17
and thing, ideal and real are they same or different, and
how and why ?
What are Speech and Language, command, request,
and narration, Social life and organisation ? what is Art ?
what is the Relation between things and jivas? indi-
vidualities and group-souls ?
What is Good and what is Evil ? what are Sin
and Virtue ? Right and Wrong ? Right and Duty ?
what is Conscience ? what is Liberty ? what are Order,
Evolution, the World- Process ? are jivas bound and
helpless, or are they free, and if not free, mukta,
' liberated/ how may they become so ? how may sin and
sorrow cease ? what is the Cause of sin and sorrow ?
Why and How has this sinful and sorrowful world come
into existence ? how may, and why may not, joy, happi-
ness, bliss, love, and beauty only pervade the universe ?
how may Salva-tion, Ab-solu-tipn, be won ? who can
bestow it ? is it any Other, or the Self itself ?
Such are, the harassing questions 'concerning every
moment, every aspect, of his life, that follow on the heels
of the searcher. Small blame to him if he despair of
mastering them ! Well may he give up the task again and
again as hopeless, and try to climb out of their way with
the help of the weakling plants that rise up here and there
before him, growths of temporary belief and uncertain
knowledge, naturally belonging only to the first stage of
his journey. But the branches which he clings to, fail
him at the last, after having served their purpose of
giving him rest and strength for a greater effort, and he
18 LET HIM NOT DESPAIR [SCIENCE OF
is shaken down from them by his pursuers, and compelled
to press forward again.
Let him not despair. The intensity and stress of
his vairagya 1 will soon break up the shell of selfishness
that limits consciousness in him into a personal-self-con-
sciousness, and will transform it into the All-Self-Con-
sciousness. Then that Inmost Mystery of the Universe,
that is now hidden from his sight, shall stand revealed.
The energy of that vairagya will transform his hurrying
feet into wings, on which he will rise high above the
labyrinth of doubts and questions ; and from that height
he will be able to master all the foes that harried and
pursued him so relentlessly."
vairagya, is the passionate revolt from all limitation of the
Self, from all selfishness, all selfish and personal attachments in himself
as well as others, which constitutes the indispensable pre-requisite to a
true, earnest, and fruitful enquiry into the origin and end of things, and
is the counterpart of 59^J^ jnumuksha, the yearning for liberation
from pain, the essential pain of bonds, limitations, doubts and fears and
lack of the supreme and final Self-dependence. The mystics' "Dark
Night of the Soul"*, before it attains final certainty, the " Slough of
Despond," are allied to, though they may not be quite the same as,
vairagya. In order to lead successfully to the great realisation, the
vairagya must be s a 1 t v i k a, benevolent, philanthropic , not r a j a s a
mere cynicism, or t a mas a, mere indifference, sloth. To see others in
pain should be the greatest pain.
>J The expression employed here may appear a little too impassioned.
This has been done purposely to show that metaphysic deals, not only
with the single cold and sober department of intellect m life, but with
the whole of life as manifesting m cognition, desire, and action, and has
to pass through the travail of a rebirth that would encompass all these.
The whole life of the true and earnest enquirer is put into such search .
hence the mixture of science and emotion. Prof. Patrick Geddes
has well said, in his report on The Proposed University at Indorc,
"...To stir ourselves to a higher and broader level of thinking than
the everyday one... involves a certain warmth ; it requires activity
and ardour as of the climber, beyond our habitual alternation of pedes-
trian's pavement and sedentary 's chair. With all real thought-problems,
it is as with the forging of iron, which, to be strongly or subtly fashioned,
PEACE, CH. Ill] SEARCH DEEPER " 19
It should be noted here that each of the first two
amvers to the great question carries with it its own
corresponding set of answers to all these questions. But,
like those two, these also are unsatisfactory, external and
superficial. The earnest enquirer must search deeper.
How to answer them in terms of Consciousness, of the
Self, which is the nearest to him and therefore after all
the most intelligible ? He must interpret all things in
their deepest connection with and origin from the Self ;
otherwise doubt will remain and satisfaction not be gained.
For as the answer to the one Great Question is to disclose
the answer to all these, so in turn the good answering of
these will be the test that that one answer itself is good.
NOTE. Who am I, whence, how, whither, why ?, this
has been asked in the very same words, so to say, by Shankara
of India and Bergson of France, to mention only two out of
innumerable seekers. Omar Khayyam of Persia has put the
question in the very same words also, in beautiful setting,
Into this Universe, and WJiy not knowing,
Nor Whence, like water willy-nilly flowing ;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy nilly blowing.
But he was not a seeker for the answer, but had satisfied
himself that answer was impossible, and was content to taste
must be hammered red-hot. The eagle rises to Ins height through the
psych-organic stress of life and effort, which heats his blood. ..and so
gives him wider and clearer vision, albeit at a temperature far above that
of fever."
"It is the heart and not the brain that to the Highest doth attain " ;
(Longfellow). Moksha is not mere vision, but ex-tasis also, a mystic
communion, union, of the Individual with the Universal. " All great
things and the great philosophies are among them come from the
heart and from great passion" Riehl's Nt^tsctic, quoted at p. 113 of
A. Herzberg's The Psychology of Philosopher**. Bergson f s stress on
the vital element, on intuition, on life, indirectly expresses instinctive
realisation of the inseparability of thought-emotion-volition.
20 EMOTIONAL-INTELLECTUAL MOTIVE [SCIENCE OF
the savour of inveighing with refined poetic unction against
the transiency of this world's glories, and of singing the praises
of love and wine as the only substantial joys that can give
such consolation as i? possible for its sorrows unless we
.assign mystic interpretations to his words, t.e. 9 'love' is
* love divine and universal ', ' wine ' is * hormones ' secreted
by special glands, under the stimulus of yoga-exercises, etc.
But the Indian questioners put before this question, the other
question " how may pain be abolished," as the main motive
for all philosophico-religious enquiry, and then take up the
other as a consequent, abolition of pain ensuing ultimately on
realisation of the true Nature of the Self, which Nature includes
Relation with the Not-Self. All the many questions stated
in this chapter are only either the metaphysical, or the logical,
or the psychological, or the ethical, pragmatical, practical, or
the religious, aspects, forms, and derivatives, of this ultimate
problem of all problems. Many of them are answered, from
the standpoint of what is regarded here as the final answer
to the main question, in the course of the present work ;
others are dealt with in the other works of the writer.
" Life is rational. It has a clear aim and purpose, dis-
cernible by the aid of reason and conscience. And no human
activity can be fully understood or rightly appreciated until
the purpose of life is perceived. You cannot piece together a
puzzle-map as long as you keep one bit in a wrong place.
When the pieces all fit together, then you have a demonstration
that they 'are all in their right places. Given the clue supplied
by true religious perception, you can place Art so that it shall
fit in with a right understanding of politics, economics, sex-
relationships, science, and all other phases of human activity " :
Tolstoy, quoted by Aylmer Maude, in his Introduction to
What is Art by Tolstoy (English translation, Scott Library
Series).
PEACE, CH. IV] 21
CHAPTER IV
THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE THIRD AND
LAST ANSWER THE SELF AND
THE NOT-SELF
THE second answer remains, as said before, wavering
and satisfactionless. Explanation of the world, which is
the sole purpose of philosophy, by means of two factors,
can only be a tentative, and not a final, solution. It is a
great advance to have reduced the multifariousness of the
world to a duality. But what the searcher wants is a
Unity, and in this respect, the first answer was indeed even
better than the second, for it reduced all things to a
unity, the will of an omnipotent being. 1 That unity was,
however, a false unity. It had no elements of perman-
ence in it. The will, by itself, of an individual, carries
1 As a fact, some earnest seekers, having arrived at the second
answer, but not satisfied, and unable to advance to the third, delibera-
tely go back to the first, and take up the bhakti-marga, ' the path of
devotion ' to a Personal God. The case of those who have advanced to
the third answer, yet also, deliberately, revive the touch of personal
b h a k t i , is different ; as that of Vyasa composing the Bhagavaja after
having compiled the Maha-bhttrati and written the Brahma Surras, or
of Shankara, singing hymns to Vishnu, Shiva, Ddvi and establishing
m a t h a s (celibate- S a n n y a s i-convents) and temples. In such cases
the b h a k t i is consciously directed to a very high m u k t a soul, acting
as a spiritual administrator of a department, globe, system, of the visible
world.
" Bhakti is threefold : ' As a physical body, I am Thy servant ; as
a soul, I am a piece of Thee ; as Spirit', I am Thy-Self." Compare the
loyalty of a citizen or a subordinate official to the State as a whole, and
to a particular higher official with whom he has to deal with immediately.
For further considerations on this subject, the reader may see pp. 197-244
of Krshna. a Study in the Theory of Avataras.
22 THE PENULT! MATE DUALITY [SCIENCE OF
within it no true and satisfactory explanation of the con-
tradictions that make up the world ; it embodies no reason
and no safeguard against caprice. Tenure of immortality
at the will of another is a^mockery and a contradiction in
terms. Therefore the jiva, however reluctantly, how-
ever painfully, has to give up that first unity, and search
for a higher one. In this search, his next step leads him,
by means of a close examination of the multiplicity which
presses on him from all sides, to a duality which seems to
him, and indeed is, at the time, the nearest approach to
that higher unity that he is seeking.
The forms of this duality, wherein he is centred for
the time being, beginning with rough general conceptions
of Spirit (or Force) and Matter, end in the subtlest and
most refined ideas of Self and Not-Self.
These, the Self and the Not- Self, are the last two
irreducible facts and factors of all Consciousness. They
cannot be analysed any further. All concrete life, in cogni-
tion-desire-action, and substance-attribute-movement,
begins and ends \\iththese. They are the two simplest
constituents of the last result of all philosophical research.
None doubts " Am I or am I not "J This has been
said over and over again by thinkers of all ages and of all
countries. The existence of the Self is certain and
i, p. 2. (Bibhotheca
Indica series, published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal.) Descartes'
famous maxim, Cogito, ergo sum, ' I think, therefore I am,' reverses
cause and effect. It would be truer to say, Sum. ergo cogito The Bible
log ion, " / am that / am... I am hath sent me to you " (Exodus), should
be noted , see pp. 109-110 of The Essential Unity of All Religions b>
the present writer
PEACE, CH.-IV] THE SELF WHAT IS IT ? 23
indubitable. It proves the existence of everything else that
is provable. It is not and cannot be proven by anything
else. The very instinct of language, in East and West,
past and present, bears eloquent, insistent, irrefrangible
evidence to the fact, in the words s v a - 1 a h - p r a m a n a ,
se//-evident, sva-yam-siddha, self-proven (the techni-
cal Samskrt name for the geometrical axiom), evident and
proven in, by, and to it-Self, the finality of all testimony,
on which alone the purely ' imaginary assumptions,'
' metaphysical concepts,' of even that so-called exactest
and most certain of sciences, mathematics, in all its
departments, are veritably and utterly founded. 1
The next question about it is : What is it ? Is it
black ? is it white ? is it flesh and blood and bone, or
nerve and brain, or rocks and rivers, mountains, heaven!}'
orbs, or light or heat or force invisible, or time or space ?
is it identical or coextensive with the living body, or is it
centred in one limb, organ, or point or spot thereof ? The
single answer to all this questioning is that " That which
varies not, nor changes, in the midst of things that change
and vary, is different from them " ; - therefore the I Con-
sciousness, which persists unchanged and one, throughout
all tile many changes of the material body and its sur-
roundings, is different from them all. ' I ' who played
and leapt and ^lept as an infant in my parent's lap so
many years ago, have now infants in mine own. What
unchanged and persistent particle of matter continues
1 See pp. 80-6 of The Science of the Self, for full comment on this.
24 THE CHANGELESS [SCIENCE OF
throughout these years in my physical organism ? * What
identity is there between that infantine body and this
aged one of mine ? But the * I ' has not changed. It is
the same. Talking of myself, I always name myself * I,'
and nothing more nor less. The sheaths in which I am
always enwrapping the ' I ' thus : I am happy, I am
miserable, I am rich, I am poor, I am sick, I am strong, I
am young, I am old, I am black, I am white, I am a god
in dreams, a very helpless human creature on waking
these are accidents and incidents in the continuity of the
* I '. They are ever passing and varying. The ' I ' re-
mains the same. Conditions change, but they always
surround the same * I,' the unchanging amid the chang-
ing ; and anything that changes is, at first instinctively,
and later deliberately, rejected from the ' I,' as no part of
itself. And as it remains unchanged through the changes
of one organism, so it remains unchanged through the
changes and multiplicity of all organisms. Ask anyone
and everyone in the dark, behind a screen, through closed
door-leaves : " Who is it ? " The first impulsive answer
is : " It is L" * Thus potent is the stamped impress, the
unchecked outrush, the irresistible manifestation of the
Universal Common T in all beings. The special naming and
description : " I am so and so," follows only afterwards,
1 What truth there is in the view, that some one or more particles of
matter persist with persistent consciousness (two forms of which view are
the theosophical doctrine of the auric egg, jiva-kosha, and Weis-
mann's theory of cell-continuity) may appear later. (See the chapter on
Jiva-atoms, infra.)
I Brhad-Aranyaka, I, iv, 1.
PEACE, CH. IV] AMIDST THE CHANGING 25
on second thought. So real is the * I ' to the ' I ', that it
expects others (who really are not 'others') to re-
cognise it as surely as it recognises it-Self. Again,
what is true of the * I ' with regard to the body, is
also true of it with regard to all other things. The
house, the town, the country, the earth, the solar
system, which ' I ' live in and identify and connect with
myself, are all changing momentarily ; hut * I ' feel my-
self persisting, unchanged through all their changes. * I '
am never, and can never be, conscious of myself having
ever been born or of dying, of experiencing a beginning
or an end. T " In all the endless months, years, and small
and great cycles, past and to come, this Self-luminous
Consciousness alone ariseth never, nor ever setteth." * But
as regards all the things other than * I,' that ' I ' am con-
scious of, ' I ' am or can become conscious also of their
beginnings and endings, their changes. " Never has the
cessation either in time or in space of consciousness
1 Births ancl deaths of ' others ' are always felt as only ' incidents '
in our life, ' my ' life, which is always felt as permanent, impossible to
begin or end ' I ' never mr//se(v) that ' I ' was born or shall die. ' I '
can only ' see ' in ' imagination ', a tiny infant body being born, and a
grown up one dying, and, in thought, connect the two with " my-self ',
4 me', T. So lean, and do, see, with physical eyes, the bodies of 'others'
being born or dying. We cannot realise that ' I ' ihall die That we
'fear death ' is really only fearing the loss of enjoyment of our possessions,
especially of our body, through which we enjoy the possessions, with
which ' I ' have identified my-self, by means of which I feel my separate
individual ' self '-existence. We do not fear sleep , nay, we welcome it,
in its due time , and stand in terror of insomnia , because, and only so
long as, our body and possessions are not menaced by or during sleep.
- Pancha-tlasht, i, 7.
, ?
2(> BEGINNING OR ENDING [SCIENCE OF
been experienced, been witnessed directly ; or if it has been,
then the witness, the experiencer, himself still remains
behind as the continued embodiment of that siame con-
sciousness." l WAen-so-ever and zc?A?r^-so-ever I imagine
1 Dcvi-Rhagavata, III, xxxn, 15-16.
It may be objected "But this is only negative proof , show me
positive proof, that the ' I '-Consciousness stretches through all time "
the answer is: "First; it is not negative proof that is advanced here,
but negation of negation of Consciousness , and two negatives make
a positive. Second , in order that you may have positive proof of the kind
you have in mind, i.e., witnessing the everlastingness of the '/', you
must watch it everlastingly , you can scarcely have direct positive
proof of cvcrlastmgness compressed into a few seconds or a few
minutes of answer to your query, can you ? Direct positive proof of your,
' I's ', self's eternity and infinity, you have, here and now, in one in-
stant and at one point, m your, ' I's ', self's, Self -Consciousness. Direct
positive proof of the self's ever-last ingncss and all-pervadtngitcss,
Immortality and omni -presence, is being given to It-Self, by the Self,
through endless rebirths and measureless wanderings riding in and on
the orbs of space Remember that ' ever-lastingness ', the meaning of
the word, the whole of it, is all in your mind, your consfciousness, the
Self's consciousness, now and here, at this moment
Lack of memory of past births is no disproof of rebirth. Far the
larger part of daily knowings, feelings, actings, is completely forgotten
Yet nothing of them is wholly annihilated , it all remains buried in the
sub- or supra-conscious ; and is revivable under special conditions ; as is
proved by the work of hypnotists and psycho-analysts. How and why
the scientists admit they have no satisfactory purely physical or physio-
logical explanation. The superphy steal explanation, given by Indian
and other yqga and mystic traditions, is that all, the minutest, details of
experience are ' photographed ' and ' phonographed ' in the suks h ma-
sh a rira, subtle body, on which the successive physical bodies of the
same soul are strung. The complete explanation is to be found in the
metaphysical aphorism, sarvam sarvatra sarvada, 'all is every
where, every when, everyway or all-ways '. The nature of separate
' individuality ' has to be carefully understood in this connection , see
Chapters XV and XVI infra, and pp. 411-413 of World War and Its
Only Cure- World Order and World Religion ; and ' Note on Karma
and Rebirths ', pp. 190-199 of Essential Unity of All Religions.' 1 The
difference between ' ever-lasting-ness ' and ' eternity ' will appear later.
PEACE, CH. IV] OF THE 'l' NEVER EXPERIENCED 27
myself, my consciousness, i.e., all Consciousness (for con-
sciousness is always and only My consciousness), as ceasing,
in that same act of imagination / see the subsequent time
and the further space as devoid of Me a contradic-
tion in terms. Every when and where, every then and
there, every instant of time and point of space, at which
I may try to imagine myself (i.e., the ' My-consciousness,'
the consciousness which is Me, which is /, the subject,
and not the body which is an object) as ending, is itself
within me, in my imagination ; I am all around and about
and beyond it always and already. Thus may we deter-
mine what the ' I ' is. Omnis determinatio est negatio,
"all determination is negation," is a well-known and
well-established maxim. We determine, define, delimit,
recognise, by change, by contrast, by means of opposites ;
so much so that even a physical sensation disappears
entirely if endeavoured to be continued too long without
change ; thus we cease to feel the touch of the clothes
we put on, after a few minutes. Scrutinising closely,
the enquirer will find that everything particular, limited,
changing, must be .negated of the ' I ' ; and yet the ' I,'
as proved by the direct experience of all, cannot at all be
denied altogether. It is indeed the very foundation of all
existence. ' Existence,' ' being ', (using the two words
Modern Western psychology is also approaching this view in the
doctrine of the continuum of consciousness. " We cannot imagine the
beginning of life, but only life begun/' James Ward, "Psychology"
(Encyclo. Brit., p. 7). Hoffding, Stout, etc., all recognise the unity and
continuity of consciousness, though in the individualistic sense Green
and others seem willing to recognise it not only *' lengthwise " but also
"breadthwise," i.e., universalistically, not only along the line of each
individual, but as sweeping over and including all individuals at once. i
28 THE I'S VERY NATURE ETERNITY [SCIENCE OF
roughly as synonymous at this stage), means nothing
more than ' presence in our consciousness/ * presence
within the cognition of the I, of the Self, of Me '. What
a thing is, or may be, or must be, entirely apart from us,
from the consciousness which is ' I,' of this we simply
cannot speak. It may not be within our consciousness
in detail, with its specifications ; but generally, in some
sort or other, it must be so within consciousness, if we
are to speak of it at all.
The third step, the immortality of the ' I,' neces-
sarily follows from, is part of, the very nature of the * I '.
What does not change, what is not anything limited, of
which we know neither beginning nor end, in space or
time, that is necessarily immortal and infinite, nitya,
and v i b h u ; it cannot be created by and dependent on
anything or anyone else. 1
Let us dwell upon these considerations ; let us pause
on them till it is perfectly clear to us that 'our' conscious-
ness is the one witness to, the sole evidence and the only
possible support and substratum of, all that we regard as
real, of all 'our' world, Let us make sure, further, that by
eliminating the common factor ' our ' from both sides
1 As the Charaka, one of the principal \vorks on Sarnskrt medicine,
says .
" The notion cannot be entertained that the begmningless ' Substance
of Consciousness, * ' Conscious-stuff ' has been created by another. If
such another be said to be Atma, the Self, ; c , Consciousness itself again,
then we are willing to agree. ' '
PEACE, CH. IV] * YOU ' AND ' 1 ' BOTH IN THE ' I f 29
of the equation, the proposition stands, and stands confi-
dently, that " Consciousness is the only basis and support
of the world ". For how can we distinguish between
' our ' consciousness and ' another's ' consciousness, be-
tween * our ' world and ' another's ' world ? That another
has a consciousness, that another has a world, that there
is ' another ' at all, is still only * our ' consciousness. 1
And as this holds true for every one, at every point,
does it not follow that all these * every ones ' are only
One, that all these ' our ' consciousnesses are only one
Universal Consciousness, which makes all this appear-
ance of mutual intelligence and converse possible ? For
it is really only the One talking to itself in different
guises.
More may be said on this, later on, in dealing with
Consciousness from the standpoint of the final expla-
nation of the Wo rid -Process.
1 See the story of Rbhu and Nidagha in the Vishnu Purana (a
version of which, by the writer, appeared in The Theosophist for
March, 1909), and was reprinted in The Dream Problem, a symposium,
by Dr. Ram Narayan (Delhi) ; there is also a similar story in the Yoga
V&sishtha. " I am a character in your dream , and you are a character
in my dream." Here, ' I ' and ' your ' and ' you ' and ' my ' are all in
' each ' consciousness, and ' each ' the notion of 4 many single ones '
that is implied by ' each ' is also One and the Same consciousness. The
vicious circle is solved by adding, " and I and you both are creatures of
the dream of the Universal Self ". A real, final, distinction between ' 1 '
and ' you ' is impossible and ' unreal,' ' illusory ' for both are in the /
which is speaking That both are there, at the same time, in the same
consciousness, negates the cruder forms of individualistic solipsism, but
supports the Universahstic Solipsism which says, not that I, the individual
self, know only my own modifications, or states, but that the Universsl
Self experiences Its own (sup-posed and negated) modifications or states
in an infinite number of individual-seeming selves. Berkeley explained,
in his later writings, that the ' idealism ' of his earlier writing was not
4 individual ' idealism, but (God's) ' universal ' idealism.
30 THOUGHT AND BRAIN [SCIENCE OF
In the meanwhile, we need not be disturbed by any
random statements that " thought (or the ' I '-conscious-
ness) is the product of the brain as much as the bile is
the product of the liver 'V If any earnest-minded student
feel himself disturbed by any such, then let him ask
himself and the maker of the statement, by what laws of
deductive or inductive logic is such statement justified ?
If there are many points in common between the liver
and the brain, what similarity is there between * bile ' and
4 thought ' to justify an inference as to the similarity of
their causes ? And, again, how do we know that such
things as liver and bile and brain arc ? Because we see
and feel them! But how are we sure that we see and
1 How philosophical beliefs govern great public movements, ideas and
idealogies move the world, theory guides practice, for good or for ill the
latest instance of this, still operating on a vast scale, is the current tremend-
ous history of the first half of the 30th Century A. C For a succinct
account of the share in it, of the views of Ilegel and Feurbach the philo-
sophers, 'and Marx and Kngels, the communist-socialists, of Germany,
and Lenin and Stalin, the statesmen-makers, of Soviet Russia, see
Kngels' pamphlet, Socialism, Utopian and scientific, and ch. iv.
(and therein too, specially the section, ' Dialectical and Historical
Materialism ') ot History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(ttolshcviks) written by a special Commission of that Party (Second
Indian edition, 1944, People's Publishing House, Bombay). Great im-
portance of course belongs to the material side and needs of human life ;
but even greater importance belongs to the spiritual side and needs. The
ignoring of the latter fact introduced an element of grave error into the
great truths of the Marxian system, and has been the cause of serious
tribulations and setbacks in the life and work of Soviet Russia. From
these she has been extricating itself bv recognising its mistakes, quickly and
frankly, from time to time, in respect of human psychology and spiritual
requirements, and endeavouring to correct them. But she is still work-
ing more or less in the dark , for she is without the full light of India's
ancient scheme of Yarn a- A shram a-Dharma (now utterly corrupted),
which is, indeed, Vedanta (Philosophy and. Psychology) Applied, as Social
Organisation of the Human Race. The whole subject is discussed in the
present writer's World War and Its only Cure World Order and
World Religion, and Ancient versus Modern Scientific Socialism.
PEACE/ CH. IV] SENSES THEMSELVES UNSENSKD M
feel ? Do we see our eyes that see, and touch our hands
that touch ? If our senses prove their objects, what is the
evidence, the proof, of our having the senses, ear, skin,
eye, tongue, nose the senses, mind, not the reflected
images in a mirror which are sense-fes.v and of our
having corresponding sensations through them ? Is it not
that we are sure of our seeings and feelings, of our having
the senses wherewith we do so, of our existence at all,
only because we are conscious of such things ? It is far
easier to walk on the head comfortably without the aid
of arms or legs, than to live and breathe and move and
speak without the incessant /^-supposition that Con-
sciousness is behind and beyond' and around everything. 1
Argue as we may, we are always driven back, again and
again, inexorably, to the position that Consciousness is
verily our all in all, the one thing of which we arc abso-
lutely sure, which cannot be explained away ; and that
the Universal Self, the one common " I ' of all creatures
(or the Universal, all-including ' We,' if that word is more
significant to us, but it is One We, We as the Unified
many I's) is our last and only refuge.'
1 The word ' Consciousness ' is used for brevity , it should be under-
stood to mean ' the Principle of Consciousness ', the ' Self's Awareness ',
'which includes all States or kinds or degrees of Consciousness, waking,
sleeping, slumbering, and all those varieties which psycho-analyst and
other writers on psychology endeavour to distinguish minutely, as pre-,
fore-, co- t sub-, supra-consciousness, hypno-pompic and hypnagogic con-
sciousness, etc. All these fall within the main three, waking etc , in
Skt terms, j a g r a t-s v a p n a-s u s h u p 1 1 , or in Yoga technique,
udara-tan u-p r, a s u p t a f from a different point of view.
2
? " What is the proof of our proofs^ , " Shn-harsha, Khandana-
Khadya. i ,
32 THE ONE PROOF OF ALL PKOOFS [SCIENCE OF
Perhaps, in our long-practised love of the concrete,
we like to tell ourselves that the * I ' is only a series of
separate experiences, separate acts of consciousness. We
have then only explained the more intelligible by the less
"the senses which sense, are themselves unsensed " ; (pratyaksha
is 'here used in the limited sense of ' sensation,' not the essential one of
' direct cognition ') ; Charaka, I, xi.
. . ; "the Hearer of the ear, . . .
the Seer of the eye . , . is the Self ' ' ; Kena Upanishat.
SRTOTO sfaffi: ; Nyaya-Bhasdya, I, i, 3. "All proofs, all
evidence, ultimately depends upon, all mental processes work back to,
pratyaksha, or sensation, ' ' in the narrow sense ; all experiences ulti-
mately base upon experience, direct cognition, consciousness, in the larger
sense, as in the following :
5cf ; ^5 H ^ tf :
^firat, e S^R:, ^Tsr^
cT ?3ftWT, ^F T?m iRl FSclT I Yoga-Vfiststha. II, xix.
" As the ocean is the abiding place of all waters, so the proof of all
proofs is pratyaksha, direct cognition the a d h i-a k s h a or overlord
of each and all the senses, prat i-aksha v^dana, feeling, anubhuti,
experience, -pratipatti, awareness, s a m v i t, consciousness ; it is the
j i v a, it is the pumanorpurusha, the ' person, ' personality, of the
nature of the I-feeling ; and its samvit-s, cognisings, modifications,
states (which always involve the notion of ' another-than-I, 1 though that
notion is also within the I, and so a 'modification* of it) , are p a d-
a r t h a s, ' things , ' ' meant by words ' .
See pp. 18-26 of The Essential Unity of All Religions ^ for the
opinions of over twenty famous scientists, leaders in their respective
sciences, all to the effect that the universe has to be interpreted in terms
of. ' mind ', not of ' matter '.
PEACE, CH. IV] IS SELF ONLY A SERIES ? 33
intelligible. The separate experiences, or acts of consci-
ousness, are intelligible as a series, only by pre-supposing
a one continuous Consciousness, a Self. The acts or
modifications are of and belong to the Self, not the Self to
the former. Wherever we see unity, continuity, similarity,
there we see the impress of the Self, the One. The
concrete is held together only by the abstract, the two
being always inseparable, though always distinguishable.
" The Self-born pierced the senses outwards, hence the
Jlva seeth the outward and the concrete * many '; not
the inner Self. One seeker, here and there, turneth his
gaze inwards, desirous of immortality, and then beholdeth
the Pratyag-atma, the abstract Self." 1
Katha, iv, 1.
This word Pratyag-atma, significant as it is, and made classical
besides, by use in one of the most famous of the Upanishats, is somehow,
notwithstanding, not much used in current Vegan^a works. But it occurs
often in the Bhagavafa. See also Yoga-bh­a, i, 29, and, further,
ii, 20, and iv, 21, as regards $gT SfSRTSjpW and |fe|^fcfSf<^:, " The
Seer Ego is ' aware ' of all mental functionings," and " To say that ideas
cognise one another, is to say too much ". Shankara Mishra, in the Upas-
kara on Vaish&shika Sutra, also very effectively disposes of the theory,
revived by William James, in The Principles of Psychology, of " the
stream of thought " being self -cognisant, thus : fffi| *J5J5*ir
?fcr %c^,
?f:
34 EGO-COMPLEX & EGO-SIMPLEX [SCIENCE OF
The school of ' the New Psychology,' of psycho-
analysis, speaks of the * ego-complex ' ;it regards the notion
of ' self ' (as a concrete ' personality ') as a * complex '
of many thoughts, feelings, sentiments, etc. But it fails
to recognize that there must be a contrasting Simplex (the
abstract ' I ') also, to serve as background for the Com-
plex, which background makes the complex possible.
We feel impatient, we exclaim : " What is this * I '
that is neither this nor that ? " Let us define it, if we
can, by any particular ' this ' or ' that '. The whole of
the World-Process has been now endeavouring so to define
it, for the whole past half of all time, and by the whole
half of all countless possible * tJhis-es ' ; and it has not
succeeded. It will go on similarly endeavouring to define
it, in the whole future half of all time, and by the remain-
ing half of endless possible ways ; and it will not suc-
cee4*' It has not succeeded, and will not succeed, because
M The preceding psychosis. cannot impregnate the succeeding with
& sainskara, an ' impression, ' a ' seed, ' a ' germ, ' a ' tendency ' ; for
the latter would have to be ' stationary,' lasting from one moment into
another and this you do not admit. And a psychosis,- dying with its
own moment of time, cannot look backwards and forwards, in memory
pr expectation. If you say, there is a latent, subliminal or supraliminal,
series of psychoses of the nature of apperception, which is different from
the manifest series, and which remembers and expects and connects past
and future, the same difficulty is repeated over again. If it has any
element of persistence in it, why, that is our Self ; if not, there is no
possibility of memory and expectation and impression and tendency and
seed and germ, etc."
Shankara's Shariraka-Bhashya, II, ii, 31, is to the same effect.
1 The full significance of this statement will appear later, when the
distinction between Eternity and Time, true Infinity and the mere bound-
lessness of Space, totality and countlessness, the indivisible whole and
innumerable parts, ?>3^*ffir, k G t a-s t h a-s a 1 t a, ' rock-seated being,'
and SRff^SRTf 3ffiT, a n-& d i-p r a v S h a-s a 1 1 a, 'endless-flow existence',
is understood.
PEACE, CH. IV] SUBJECT-I AND OBJECT-THIS 35
the very being of the * I f is the negation, the opposite,
of all ' not-I's,' all that is ' object,' all that can be known
as a knowable object by the knower subject ' I ', all that is
particular, limited, defined, all that can be pointed to as
a * This V Do we think that we will evade this inevitable
conclusion by denying the ' I ' altogether ? We cannot
do that, as already said. We will only stultify ourselves.
* I ' is not nothing, but it is not any-one-thing. Let
us ponder deeply on this for days and days, and
weeks and months and years if necessary; as Indra
did (for a hundred years and one), when trying to
learn the secret of the Self from Praja-pati, in the
Upanishat-story, till we see the pure, unique, universal,
and abstract being of the ' I '. We will do so if we are
in earnest with our search ; and when we have dione so,
more than half the battle is won. We have attained to
the Pratyag-atma, the ' inward,' abstract and universal,
Ego, and are now in sight of the Param-atma, the ' Sup-
reme,' the ' Ab-sol-ute ' Self, the Self 'solved,' loosed, freed,
from all conditions, limitations, relations. This Param-
atma is the ' whole ', ' full ', significance and Nature of
the Self, so named for special reasons. 2 It is the
Brahman, final goal, and ultimate < place of Peace.
Or perhaps we feel another difficulty. Perhaps we
feel a sudden revulsion at this stage and cry : " This
commonplace * I ', that everyone is glibly talking about
and relishing acutely every moment of his life, from
> S? gg flSTT^Tctl \
2 Explained at the end of ch. viii infra.
36 THE INFINITE IS NOT GRADED [SCIENCE OF
babbling baby to garrulous old man in dotage is this
the mysterious, marvellous, and mystic vision of beatitude
and perfection that we hoped for ? I that am so small,
so weak, how can I be the unreachable, all-glorious,
Supreme ! " Let us be patient if we would understand.
Let us go back to our question ; re-formufete it to our-
selves. Have we been, at the bottom of our heart, seek-
ing so long for immortality ; or only for a ' glorious vision *
of something which is graded on to our present experi-
ences ; for aji enlargement of our powers and our worldly
possessions, transformed and glorified into subtler material,
but the same in kind ? If we have longed for such, then let
us seek for them by all means ; but the way is different ;
and the result is limited and poor by comparison.
Nachikt& refused such glorious states. He wanted im-
mortality. If the emmet were to sigh for sovereignty of.
a world-wide hurnan empire, it would be a ' glorious ' con-
summation indeed, as compared with its present condi-
tion, when it attained thereto, as it surely would if it
desired persistently and ardently enough. But would
that glorious consummation be a final consummation ?
And are the lives of such grand and glorious beings,
full of joys only ? Are they not full of miseries, as
much, as many, if not more ? Do we wish for only
such an elevation and expansion ? What if one were
ruler of a solar system, omniscient and omnipotent but
omniscient and omnipotent within the poor limits of a
solar system only ! One solar system may be, nay, must
be, to another solar system circumscribed in a sufficiently
PEACE, CH. IV] NOT COMPARATIVE 37
greater breadth of space and length of time even as
a small molecule is to the whole earth-globe ; and such
comparative smallnesses and greatnesses are endless. The
ruler of a solar system, of a hundred, of a thousand, of a
million solar systems rolled into one, must die, as such
ruler. His life, as such ruler, had a beginning and must
have an end. This fact is almost plain to the physical
senses, to say nothing of logical inferences. Physical
science sees stars ancl systems beginning and ending.
Whatever tenure of true immortality such a* ruler has, he
has it because of the identity of his self with the Pratyag-
atma, the Universal Self/even as much as, and no more
arid no less than, the meanest worm whose form exists
within his system. We do not, at present, seek for any-
thing that is only comparative and circumscribed and
limited by death at both ends. We want an im-
mortality that is unlimited and un comparative. Such
can be found only in the Universal ' I ? . Thoughtlessness
says, " This thing is commonplace and unimportant,"
only because it is familiar. Serious thought, on the other
hand, perceives, in that same ever-and-everywhere-presence
of the ' I ' ; in that familiar nearness and pervasion, by
the * I ', of all life and all consciousness and all universal
processes ; the conclusive evidence of the Self's unlimited-
ness and true immortality and everlastingness. This
Pratyag-atma declares its utter purity, transparency,
transcendence of all limitations whatsoever, gross and
glorious, through the mouth of Krshna : " The ' I ' is
the origin, the middle, and the end of all the worlds.
38 VAGUE VERSUS CLEAR KNOWLEDGE [SCIENCE OF
It is the womb, also the tomb, of all of them. There
is nothing higher than the ' I/ O thou who wouldst win
the wealth of wisdom ! All this multitude of worlds is
strung together <Jn the ' I ', even as jewels on a thread." !
We may think again, with lurking doubt as to the
value of our finding : " 1 knew this * I ' indeed before I
started on my quest ! " That we did so is no detraction
from the value of our finding now. We knew it then, it
is true, but how vaguely,, how doubtingly, bandying it
about between a hundred different and conflicting hypo-
theses. Compare that knowledge with the utter all-em-
bracing fullness of the knowledge of the nature of the
' I ' that we have now attained to. Indeed it is the law
of all enquiry about anything and everything, that we
begin with a partial knowledge, and end with a fuller one.
None can turn attention to that of which he knows
nothing at all; none needs to enquire about that of which
hg knows all already.* To start on the quest of the North
Pole we must have at least heard of it as existing and
in a certain direction. This knowledge is very different
in fullness from the knowledge we should acquire if
we actually stood on the North Pole ; still it is partial
knowledge of it. The reconciliation of the antitheses,
involved in the paradox, that we cannot talk about what
we do not know, and need not talk about what we do
know, will be seen, later on, to lie in this : As everything
in the universe is connected with everything else therein,
1 Bhagavad-Gifa, vii, 6, 7.
2 Yoga-vOsishtha.
PEACE, CH. IV] 'DO NOT BE-LITTLE YOUR-SELF' 39
so every single piece of knowledge is connected with every
other; and therefore every jiva possessing any piece of
knowledge is potentially in possession of all knowledge ;
and enquiry and finding, in the individual life, mean only
the passing from the less full to the fuller, from the
potential to the actual knowledge. In other words,
the unfolding of the knowledge existing, but concealed
within the jiva, appears as enquiry and finding. Thus,
then, we can talk about all things, because we know a
little of them all ; and need to talk about them, because
we wish to know more. Let us not look, then, with slight
upon this simple * I '. " The heedless ones condemn the
' I ' embodied in the human frame, unwitting of the
supreme status of that ' I,' as the Great Lord of all that
hath come forth." ?
There is one point here which should be borne in
mind. The full knowledge, obtained by the traveller
when he has attained his goal, may be set down by him
exhaustively in a book, reading which, another may
acquire that knowledge. Yet there will be a difference
of degree, the difference between direct and indirect,
between the knowledge of the two. Such difference will
always hold good as regards things material, whether
gross or subtle (even those loosely but not accurately
called spiritual). But as regards abstract principles, the
universal ' I ', and the abstract laws and subordinate
principles that flow from the Nature of that * I ', directly,
and are imposed by Its being as laws on the World-Process
1 Bhagavad-G?ta t ix, 11.
40 METAPHYSIC OF MATHEMATIC [SCIENCE OF
in their case, knowledge and finding are one ; there
is no distinction between direct and indirect knowledge,
intellectual cognition and realisation. In this respect,
metaphysic is on the same level as arithmetic and
geometry. 1 What the true significance is of the
1 Indeed the level of metaphysics may well be said to be higher than
that of mathematics. All the root-conceptions of the latter are essentially
metaphysical. In arithmetic, the mathematics of time, the only one
that is not-a-many at the same time, which we know of, is my-Self :
every sens-able one, is a many too ; the only ratio, relation, that really
comes home to us, is that of memory, expectation, reason, in which the
principle of oneness or identity, working in the many, assumes the forms
of relativity, causality, generalised law, invariable succession, proportion,
, etc. In geometry, the mathematics of space, the only point that we really
know of as having position, posit-in g, but no definable magnitude, is again
this same my-Self ; all sens-able points have magnitude ; the only length
without breadth is the line of memory-expectation ; the only surface
without depth is imagination's ; the only perfect sphere is the infinite
One of the All-Consciousness, indicated by the logion which embodies the
final answer to our questionings ; the only perfectly equal radii are the
number-less individual selves or souls ; the only intelligible postulate is
the free feel of the will. The first proposition of the first book of Euclid
may well be interpreted as Purusha and Prakyti interlacing, to give birth
to the triple-functioned, triune-minded, ' equi-lateral ' man; and other
propositions similarly. ' In dynamics, the mathematics of force or energy,
the only force or energy that we understand is that of ' my- will '. It is
in this sense that the Vdas, and their climax and essence, Ve"<}anta,
Brahma-vuJyS, aresvatah-pramana, ' self-evident, ' and a - p a u r u ,
sheya, 'not the inventions of any particular ^ereons,' purushas-
but universal (or, as they may be poetically called, divine) truths. In this
sense also are the Vecjas, in their entirety, said to be infinite, a n-an t & h
vai V e 4 5 h. Science must be as infinite as the world-objects with which
it deals. The comparatively small texts, currently known as the four'Vedas,
are only an infinitesimal fragment of this Universal Science ; but they
apparently contain the fundamental laws and facts of the world-process,
and at the same time constitute, it would seem, a manual of super-
Physical science and art of a special kind, all ultimately based on meta-
physics and psychology, and intended to give access to the more or less
individualised forces, g e v a s or s h a k t i s , of the subtler worlds, parti-
cularly by means of ' sound ' and ' fire ' ; either for the sake of the immediate
joy of communion and intercourse with them ; or for the sake of helping
human life on earth, in respect of the elemental requirements of timely
sun and rain, abundance of corn and cattle, physical and mental health
and vigour, knowledge and long life, etc. The Science of the Sacred
Word, or The Pranava-Vaga of Oargyayana should be perused by those
interested in this line of thought ; also H.P.B.'s The Secret Doctrine*
PEACE, CH. IV] DIRECT & INDIRECT KNOWLEDGE 41
distinction currently made, between so-called ' mere
intellectual cognition * of Brahman, and * realisation *
thereof; between knowledge which is par-oksha,
'beyond sight,' and that which is a-par-oksha, 'not
beyond sight ' ; will appear later. 1
Having thus necessarily abs-tract-ed and separated
out from the World- Process, the true, universal, and un-
limited One, out of which all so-called universals borrow
their pseudo-universality, we equally necessarily find left
behind a mass of particulars. And just as it is not possible
to define the ' I ' any further than by naming it the ' I,'
so is it not possible to define this mass of particulars
otherwise than by naming it the ' Not-I,' ' Not-Self,'
4 Non-Ego,' ' This,' Mula-prakrti, ' Root-Nature,' ' Root-
Matter '. 2 Take it at any point of space and moment of
time, it is always a particular something which can be
cognised as Object in contrast with the cognising Subject.
As the characteristics of the ' I ' are universality and
abstractness, so are the characteristics of the * Not-I '
particularity and concreteness. It is always a ' This,' s a
particular something that is always, in ultimate analysis,
1 See the last pages of this book.
2 Sankhya-Kdrika, 11.
3 ' This ' is the name for the object, the objectiye world, as ' I ' is
the name for the subject. In Samsktf, the word isigamore'tat, See,
e.g., Manu, vi, 82. According to grammarians, ejat is the nearest
'this;' i(Jam, the slightly less near; a 4 as* the distant but yet
'this 1 , (and hence, it is the technical name for the next world) ; and
tat,' that, ' is what is ' beyond immediate sense ' , ' out of sight ' ;
42 PSEUDO-GENERALISED NOT-SELF [SCIENCE OF
limited and definable in terms of the senses. Its special
name is the Many, Nan a, An-ekam, as that of the
Self is the One, kam. That it is generalised under
the word ' Not-Self ' is only a pseudo-generalisation,
by reflection of the universality of the ' I '. The word
' pseudo ' is used to distinguish the universality of the
One from that of the Other. It does not mean false
in the sense of ' non-existent,' but only in the sense of
* apparent,' * not real,' ' borrowed,' ' reflected '. The
physical fact of the continuance and indestructibility of
matter illustrates this distinction. Because the ' I ' and the
* Not- 1 ' always imply each other and can never be
actually separated, they are always imposing on each
other, one another's attributes. The ' I ' is always (be-
coming particularised into individuals, and the ' Not-I ' is
always becoming generalised into the elements and classes
and kinds of matter, because of this juxtaposition of the
two, because of their immanence within each other.
Further treatment of this point belongs to a later
stage of the discussion. It is enough to show here that
the searcher necessarily comes, at the last stage before
the final finding, to these two, the Self and the Not-Self.
It should be added that, at this stage, having traced
his ego into the universal Ego, the j I va finds a partial
satisfaction and peace. Seeing that the universal Ego is
unlimited by space and time, he feels sure of his immor-
tality, and does not yet feel any great care and anxiety
precisely to define the nature of that immortality. He
is, for the time being, content to take, it as a universal
PEACE, CH. IV] UNSTABLE PARTIAL PEACE 43
immortality, in which all egos are merged into one, with-
out any clear distinction and specialisation ; for he feels
that such specialisation is part of the limited and perish-
ing, and so incapable of such immortality as belongs to
the Pratyag-atma. Later on, he will begin to ask whether
there is any such thing as ' personal immortality* also ; he
will find that in the constitution of the material sheaths
which make of him an individual ego out of the universal
Ego, there is a craving for such personal immortality, 1
for a continuance of existence as .separate'; and he will
also find that such is possible, nay certain, in its own
special sense and manner. Just now, there is but one
last remaining doubt that makes him feel that he has
found but a partial peace and satisfaction in the finding
of the universal Ego.
CHAPTER V
THE MUTUAL RELATION OF THE SELF
AND THE NOT-SELF
SEEING the unvarying continuity of the ' universal ' Ego,
the Pratyag-atma, through and amidst the endless flux of
' particulars/ of not-selves, we have ' abs-tract-ed,' sepa-
rated, it out and identified ourselves with it, and so
derived a certain sense of absence of limitation, of
1 See Stirling's Secret of Hegel, 2nd ed., pp. 213, 214, and his
Schwegler, pp. 435, 436.
44 MENTAL VERSUS REAL [SCIENCE OF
immortality. But the separation now begins to seem'
to us to be merely ' mental ' and not ' real '. For while
we see, without doubt, that ' I ' continues unchanged
through changing things, we also see that it continues
to do so only in these things, and never apart from them ;
and if it must do so, is it not, after all, limited by some
inherent want and defect, so that it is dependent for its
manifestation, its existence in fact, upon these things,
just as much as these things may depend upon it ? So we
come back to the old difficulties of two eternals-infinites.
We must reconcile these two eternals-infinites : indeed
we must derive the one from the other ; and also main-
tain, all the while, their coevalness, their simultaneity ;
for it is not in our power to deny the beginninglessness
and endlessness of either. How to perform this most
impossible task, to combine all the statements of the first
and the second answers, and also obviate all the possible
objections to them ? How relate Self and Not-Self so
that Self ' my-Self * shall no longer feel bound, small,
dependent, helpless, at the mercy of any Other-than-Self ?
We do not want to know how and why and whence
the Self. When we come to a true eternal infinite One,
further search for causes ceases. To ask for a cause of
that which is unlimited and changeless is meaningless. 1
1 ' Whence ' is asked for the limited in space ; * when,' for that in
time ; ' how ', for that in condition (motion) ; ' why/ for that which is
limited by and in purpose, design, desire. We have found, by the think-
ing done so far, that the Self is not limited in or by space, time, condi-
tion, desire, change. Why is appropriate only when there is a change, a
new event, concerned. ' Why has this happened ? ' ' Why do you wish
this to happen ? ' Where there is no change, there can be no ' why '.
PEACE, CH. V] CHANGE-LESS IS WHY-LESS 45
None really and sincerely does or can do so. All enquiry
starts with a certain standard ; when we have found such
and such a One, we shall toil and seek no further and no
longer ; and Uncausedness, Self-existence, is, on the very
face of it, part of the standard of the enquiry after the
Unlimited. We do not want to engage in an endless pas-
time of asking " Why " after every answer, without
considering whether the answer is, or is not, complete
and final. What we want is to derive all and every-
thing from One True, unchanging and unlimited some-
thing, which something shall be wy-Self, owr-Self. But we
must do this and nothing less. We must prove conclu-
sively to ourselves that our Self is the true eternal and un-
limited, that it is not based in any way on the Not-Self ;
but that from it is derived the Not-Self ; and a countless,
Sankhya declares that the concrete-seeing. ' intelligence ' and its ' argu-
mentation ' can never come to a finality, tarka-a-prati-shthana^
The reason is plain. All such argument starts with a limited datum ; and
with a limited datura, there must be an endless regressus and progressus
of why's and how's, and because's and thus's, and why's and how's to
these last two again. But with an unlimited datum, unlimited in time and
space, motionless, there is no further how and why ; we have finality.
The Self is such an unlimited finality ; it is absolutely certain ; it is the
Absolute It-Self. The difference between intellectuality and spirituality
various aspects of which are m a n a s and buddhi-mahatof Sankhya,
b u dd h i and c h i 1 1 a of Vedanta, present cognition and memory, cons-
cious 'and sub-and-supra-conscious, intelligence and intuition, patence and
latence, willed attention and dormant tendency, knowledge and wisdom,
individual and universal, understanding and reason, discrete and continu-
ous, (personal) J and (all-personal) We or the ' I '-that difference is but
this : that the former deals with the Limited and the latter with the Un-
limited. The same j I v a, in one mood, is intellectual and limited, in
another, Spiritual and Unlimited. It may be said that it is not impossible
to ask: " Why does the Self pxist ?" But on scrutiny, it will be found
that, if the questioner has any meaning behind his words, it is only this :
*' Why has the Self come to be here, or why has it begun to exist." 'And
the changes involved in these interpretations are obviously out of place
in connection with the Self, motionless, spaceless, timeless, including all
times, spaces, and motions within Itself, within Consciousness.
46 MULTIPLYING IS NOT SATISFYING [SCIENCE OF
boundless, endless series too of not-selves. We have to
create everything, all things, oat of the ' I,' and not only
everything and all things but an endless series of such.
We have to create, in a rational and intelligible manner,
not only something but an infinite something, viz., the
second of two co-infinites, and create it oufr of nothing ;
or, which is the same thing, out of the first co-infinite,
without changing this first infinite in the very minutest ;
for thea, its unlimitedness is lost ; it is subject to finite-
ness, to change, to beginning and end. 1 Impossible, truly,
to all appearance ! Yet until this so impossible task is
done, there is no final peace, no final satisfaction. Amass
worldly wealth and glories, amass endless particulars
upon particulars of science, amass occult knowledge and
powers of high and low degree, for a thousand years, for
a thousand thousand years, and do not this, set not
at rest this doubt and there will be no peace for you.
Secure this, and all else will follow in its proper time,
serenely, certainly, and peacefully. The gods have
suffered from this doubt, as Yama said. Indra, king
of the gods, found no pleasure in his heavenly kingdom,
and, forsaking it, studied the Science of this Peace,
1 The words infinite and eternal have been used, so far, from <tie
standpoint of the enquirer who has not yet made the technical and pro-
foundly significant distinction between the true eternal and infinite, on
the one hand, and the merely in-numer-able, count-less, endless, on the
other, which distinction will appear later on. This false or pseudo-in-
finite has been called ' spurious ' and ' bastard ' infinite, by Hegel ; see The
Secret of Hegel, by Dr. J. H. Stirling, who delights in an exuberantly
vigorous, aggressive, pugnacious style, and imports dramatic phrasing into
philosophical discussion, thereby making it more ' interesting ' and
"arresting ', if, perhaps, less serious, lefcs reposef ully anxious, less earnest-
ly wistful.
PEACE, CH. V] PERFORM THE 'IMPOSSIBLE' 47
Acjhyatma-vidya, the Science of the Self, for a hundred
years and one, in all humility, at the feet of Prajapari. 1
Even Vishnu had to master it before he could become
the ruler of a system. 2 Let us then set our hearts on
mastering it.
The first ' result of this last effort is a return to the
first answer on a higher level. The universal Self, 1 the
One-without-a-Second, by its own inherent power of Will-
Desire, creates the Not-Self, at the same time dividing
it-Self into many selves, assuming names and forms by
combination with the Not-Self. " It willed : May I
become many, may I be born forth ; " " Having created
all this it entered thereinto itself.'' Such are the first of
the scripture-texts which seek to sum up the World-
Process in one single act of consciousness, and bring it all
within the Self. 3
This first result, corresponding to the Dvaita or
dualistic form of the Vedanta, is only the theory of
creation on a higher level, with a new, added, and im-
portant significance. Instead of a personal, extra-cosmical,
separate God, the universal Self, immanent in the
1 Chhandogya-Upanishat, VIII. 2 Pevi-Bhagavaf a, I, xv.
^^snnita, ?faj Chhandogya-Upanishat, VI, ii.
15 w* , rarfcr, ?i% ; g: w * *KPRI; *m jr, ^
^ Taittirlya-Upanishat, II, vi. Cf. Karl Pearson,
Grammar of Science (1st edn.) : '* There is an insatiable desire in the
human breast to resume in some short formula, some brief statement, the
facts of hu man experience," (p. 44). If he had added, " in such a manner
as to derive these all from the Self, ' ' he would have explained the why of
the insatiable desire at the same time. Fichte only, of western philo-
sophers, seems to have attempted to do so, but has not satisfactorily
deduced the concrete ' this-es ' from the abstract universal Ego.
48 UNIFY GOD-NATURE-MAN [SCIENCE OF
universe, has been reached. Instead of craftsman and
knick-knacks, potter and pots, builder and houses, we have
en-Soul-ing Life and Organisms. The world is, though
vaguely, included in the being of the One ; the sense of
Unity is greater, and that of irreconcilable difference and
opposition less. The universe, made up of countless
world-systems, with their endlessly repeated beginnings
and endings, is without beginning and without end, as
much as the Self, and individual selves ; and the karma
of the latter is without beginning, but may have an end
by M the grace of God ". As to what is the exact relation
between that universal Self and the individual selves and
living material organisms and so-called dead inanimate
matter, there is, as yet, no really satisfactory idea. 1 It
appears in st general way, at this stage, that the three
God, individual spirits or ' Man,' and ' Nature ' are all
eternal, and ever distinct from each other, but yet that
the latter two are entirely subordinate to the first, and
that the relation between God and j I v a is that of an indi-
visible conjunction, the individual j I v a being unable to
exist without the energising support of the universal
Spirit, as the tree cannot live and subsist without its sap.
But .this transmuted form of the theory of creation
fails and falls short of final satisfaction, for reasons the
1 The five kinds of separateness and relationship, referred to in the
pvaita-Veganta, are :
i.e.,
difference between j i v a and j i v a, between j i v a and I s h v a r a. be-
tween j I v a and the world (or inanimate matter), between the world and
I s h v a r a, and between inanimate matter and inanimate matter.
PEACE, Ctt. V] THE ONE MAKES It-SELF TWO 49
same as those that demolish that theory* It explains the
beginning of the World-Process as being dependent on,
and the result of, the desire, the will, of the Self. It
thus explains motion, change. But it does this by means
of a mysterious Power which itself requires rational ex*
planation. Also, there is no reason assigned for the
exercise of such power. Finally, it does not explain
and contain Changelessness. The Perfect, the Supreme,
must be Changeless. What changes, desires, feels want,
is imperfect, is limited, is less than the Supreme. 1 Our
final search is for that which shall be Changeless, and yet
shall explain and contain all the multiplicity of endless
Change within itself.
The next step, the second result of the last effort,
is the Vishisht-advaita form of the Ve^anfa : One sub-
stance, eternal, infinite, changeless, * Ishvara,' has two
aspects, is animate and inanimate, c h i t and a c h i t,
conscious and unconscious, Self and Not-Self ; and by its
power, Maya, Shakti, this ' sove-reign Lord ' causes
interplay of the two, for its own high pleasure which there
is nohe other to question, without any compulsion from
without. " It has two natures ; one, Formless, the other
Form ; ... It became husband and wife ; ... It is Being,
also No-thing." 9 Such is the second series of scripture
texts that correspond to this stage.
3 TOTTcflT
Shariraka-bhashya, II. i. 32.
2 \ *
flcfof ^wtt *n?*nJf at^f WWR?*, qfire <wft ^ erarot ;
50 FOR INTER-PLAY [SCIENCE OF
This second result, it is clear, is again only the
second answer, the theory of transformation, on a higher
level. Two factors are recognised, but subordinated to,
made parts and aspects of, a third, which is not a third,
however ; and the two are thus rather forcibly reduced
to a pseudo-unity. Instead of the complete separateness
of seer and seen, instead of the Sahkhya doctrine of
Purusha and Prakrti, Subject and Object, as commonly
understood, we have a complete pantheism of ensouling
life and organism. The two are not only seer and
seen, subject and object, desirer and desired, actor
and acted on, but also soul (i.e., j I v a or mind)
and body, force and ' receiver/ cause and instru-
ment, knowledge and organ of knowing, desire and tool
of desire, actor and means of action. But the objections
to the original form of the transformation theory hold
good, with only the slightest modifications, against this
subtler form of it also. Why the need for, the want of,
amusement and manifestation and interplay ? f Why so
Wl 3RT^ ^ ; Brhaf-Zrapyaka-Upanishat, II, in, 1 ; lbid. t I, iv, 3 ;
Prashna-Upanishat, ii, 5. 3$ WK^=3 3*;, Bf^T; Git a, ix. 19-
t \ sftsref
SKfiT: \ Bhagavafa. Ill, vii, 3.
' Sir ! Revered Teacher ! how can specific qualities, attributes,
actions, touch, appear in, the Supreme, Which is Changeless, Pure
Consciousness, even in sport ? Sport, Play, is the activity of children, who
Wish to play with another or others, (for ' play ' means playing with
another or others) ; how can there be the action, the motion, of Play, in
th0 Supreme, Which is always ever Self -Contained, Self-Content, Motion-
iftfet, Actionless. eternally turned-away-frora (negat-ive, repudiative, of) An-
Other ? ' How the answer is hidden in the words of the question itself, how
the Sport, Lila, of the Supreme, is motionless, actionless, will appear later.
PEACE, CH. V] BUT WHY WANT INTERPLAY ? 51
much evil and misery instead of happiness in the course
of the manifestation ? And what, after all, is the duality ?
Are there two, or are there not two ? If two, and there
must be two if there is interplay, as there self-evidently
is, nothing has really been explained. Prove that one of
the two is Not, Naught, Nothing, and then you will have
said something ! What is this mysterious Maya, Shakti,
* Might/ which brings about the interplay ? What is this
unexplained secret ? How am I, the individual enquire*, to
feel the satisfaction of being the owner, possessor, master,
not the slave, of that Power? How does this explana-
tion assure me of my own freedom ? Where is the law,
the regular method, the reliable process, in all this mani-
festation and interplay and unrestrained power, , which
may assure me of orderliness -and sequence, assure me
against caprice, i.e., at least against all caprice other than
My own, and also be in accord with what I see in the
world around ? I, as an individual, do not feel my asson-
ance with this explanation. It does not yet lead tne to
the heart of the World- Process. It does not explain my
life, in reference to and in connection with the world
around me, systematically, satisfactorily. The laws of,
Karma and compensation, the law of rebirth, do not fit
into it quite plainly. To say that I am (i.e., the ' I ' is)
feeling happy in a billion forms, and also feeling miserable
in another billion, does not assimilate readily with the
constitution of my being. I feel the statement as some-
thing external to me. In order to be satisfied, I must see
the identity of the countless individual * I's,' including
$2 THE CRUX REMAINS UNSOLVED [SCIENCE OF
I f , not only in essence but in every detail and
particular.
Such are the doubts and difficulties that vitiate the
second result, and show it as of no avail. Such is the final
Crux of philosophy to reconcile the Changeless One,
Self, Subject, with the Changeful Many, Not-selves,
1 This-es ', Objects ; to explain the Relation between the
TWo ; arid in such a manner that the Two shall be One
onljL He who will mount and surmount the Crux, the
Cross, on which is sacrificed the ' small self ', of egoism,
to the * Great Self , the Universal Self, of altruism and
Universalism, shall win ' Christ '-hood, the full understand-
ing that belongs to him who is * anointed with wisdom.'
.',:.-., ^ CHAPTER VI
THE MUTUAL RELATION OF THE SELF
, AND THE NOT-SELF (Cont.)
It may perhaps be useful to the reader, especially the
iSVestertt reader, if a rapid sketch of modern Europeafc
trioiight on the subject is given here, showing how its
developments stand at the same level, though riecessarily
with very great differences of method and details, as the
second form of V&Janta above given iri essence, and the
<^rreiit third form thereof also, t>fe., the A-<Jvaita, non-
i#fc$-istic (incorrectly understood as won-istic). The
Ifiture of that A-4vgJta view will also appear, compa-
; in the course of this sketch. :
PEJACE, CH, VI] MOTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY , v 53
Indian thought in all departments of re&earch, in
which we possess tangible results of it, in the shape of
Samskrt and Prakrt works has seldom lost sight of the
fa,ct that the end and aim of knowledge is, directly or
indirectly, the alleviation of pain and the promotion of
happiness. 1 The end, aim, and sure and certain result,
of the supreme knowledge, is expressly declared to be
the alleviation of the supreme pain of the fear of an-other
and of annihilation, and the promotion of the supreme plea-
sure of the assurance of Immortality and Self-dependence.
The dominant motive of that thought, therefore, is ethico*
religious. 9 Even works on grammar and mathematics
do not forget to state, at the oucset, that they subserve
the attainment of m u k t i, liberation, salvation, in some
way or other. " What is the human need it will sub-
serve ? ", "What is its prayojana, aim, motive ?"
Who is its adhikari, i.e., for what manner and
quality of student, for person of what qualifications,
4 Because triple pains of many kinds assail human beings, therefore,
is there search for cause and remedy thereof ; final remedy is kndtvledge
of the real nature xrf the Subject and the Object, the Un manifest and the
Manifest, (and of the Relation between them, which inhered in that
real nature) '. Upanisbafs, Buddhist, and Jaina, books, SSnkhya, Yoga,
Nyaya. Vaishlshika, Purva-Mimamsa, and pre-eminently, Ve^ap|a M^-
ras, Aphorisms, and earlier works, all have sentences to thesam&effectrjit
their beginnings, (53?^, Manifest ; 3=|oq^R, Unmanifest P, Kntt^ei^^
2 Or " pragmatical " in the highest and most comprehensive sena
as it would perhaps be now called, in the West, See William James,
Pragmatism. . ., -.
54 NEED AND QUALITY OF STUDENT [SCIENCE OF
needs and requirements, is it intended ? " these questions
are answered at the outset of every recognised ancient
classical work in Sarnskrt in every department of its litera-
ture. Since it recognises the organic wholeness and unity
of life and nature, the unbreakable connection between
all departments of 'nature' and all aspects (corresponding
to them) of ' man,' soul, mind ; therefore, Samskrt philo-
sophy deals with all other questions as subordinate to the
main question of the supreme need of the soul " How
may the soul be freed from pain, how may misery be abo-
lished, how may happiness be expanded and perpetuated
infinitely ? " the central motive which governs the whole
of life. Its answer, as will appear later, is, " By realisation
of the true Nature of the soul as the Supreme Self." The
exposition, of the essential features of that Nature of the
Self, contains within itself, answers to all other and minor
but connected questions.
Modern western thought, on the other hand, has,
for various reasons, historical and evolutionary, become,
dtlring, and since, the nineteenth century, more and more
disconnected with D harm a, Religion-Law, which, in
its perfection and completeness, is the one Science of all
sciences, knowledge pre-eminently directed to the achieve-
ment of desired happiness here and hereafter by means
of appropriate action ; ' V&Ja-Science, as it is named in
Saipskrt. The mainspring of this modern western know-
Ifedge is mainly intellectual, knowledge for the sake of
'knowledge at least as that mainspring is described by
. i. 2.
PEACE, CH. Vl] SCIENCE, ITS USE AND MISUSE 55
some of those 'in whose hands it has made progress,
especially in science. This fallacy as it is, despite its
brilliant results in science, including psychology alsrf
has its own good reasons for coming into existence, as
may be understood later. That it is fallacy may be in*
ferred, in passing, even from the one single and simple
fact that public common sense, public instinct, public
need, have always declined to rest content with a mere
subjective and poetical admiration of the scientific dis-
coveries registered in bulky tomes and journals, but have
assiduously applied them, and continue to apply them,
with an ever-increasing eagerness and demand, to the
purposes of daily life, for the assuagemqpt of its pains
and the enhancement of its pleasures ; and this, with a
success in the mechanical arts and appliances of peace
and commerce, which makes modern western civilisation,
the wonder, the envy, the exemplar to be copied, of the
eastern peoples. 1
1 Unhappily, by the Law of Duality, Polarity, Action-and-Rcaction,
Thesis-and-Antithesis, which Law is inherent in (the) Nature" (o! the
Supreme Self), Good, by Excess, has become Evil, Extreme ha* iMPf
to Counter- Extreme ; mechanical arts and appliances have been con
verted into monstrous implements of internecine destruction, and science
has been prostituted into the slave of horrible war, instead of being made
the mother of peace and prosperity for mankind ; especially since the
beginning of the twentieth century after Christ ; and the western races,
instead of becoming the friendly helpers and uplifters of weaker races,
have first become the rulers and oppressors, and now the devastators, Of
those weaker races, and of themselves also by internecine war, out of
excessive greed for lands, serf-labor, markets (called 4 colonies ' and
' dependencies ' and ' mandated territories ' in hypocritical diplomatic
language). If the scientists of the world had borne in mind, always, the
awful dangers of misuse of science, they would, long ago, have taken
due precautionary measures, and insisted on properly guaranteed inter-
national pacts, between Scientists and Statesmen, before publishing their
discoveries; as Manu-Smrfi enjoins, ch. ii, verse 114; see the press*!
writer's World-War and Its Only CureWorld Order and World
56 iBPBTEMOLOGY VS. PRAGMATICS [SCIENCE OF
In the meanwhile, that Western thought has ap-
proached metaphysic proper, too, from the side of psycho-
logy or rather epistemology, the theory of knowledge,
almost exclusively. 1 It examines the nature of the Self
and the Not-Self- in their relation to each other as
cogniser and cognised, subject and object, knower and
known, rather than in their other relations to each other,
of desirer and desired, and actor and acted on. 9 In other
words, it at first confined itself, in metaphysic, mainly
to one relation, that of jnana, cognition, and did not
take much more than incidental account of ichchha,
j.e.9 desire, and kriya, i.e., action. These, in their
*
Religion, ch. xii* ' Scientists of the World ! Unite ! ' The hope of Huma-
nity today, is in a Re-re-action, a higher Synthesis after the Antithesis,
return of satya-yuga, ' age of Dharma ', ' age of Truth and Concord,'
and a better satya-vuga than the previous one. after the present kali-
yuga, ' age of Discord and A-dharma ', has run its appointed unavoidable
course. Efforts to prevent the World-Wars were inevitable , the failure
Of those efforts, and the occurrence of the wars was inevitable ; the
return of World-peace, on a higher level, sooner or later, is also inevit-
able. So we hope, for such is the promise of Metaphysic, the Science
of Peace.
w Gr, logos, word, logic, putting into words, of tyt-stetne, under-
Standing ; the science of the origin, nature, and validity, of knowledge.
* This predominantly ' intellectual ' outlook upon life has. as con-
comitants or consequences, the great development of the physico- material
sciences as against spiritual science ; the predominance given to the law
of competition, of individualism, of struggle for existence, over the law
pf co-operation, of universalism, of alliance for existence ; the increase
pf egoism, aha m-k & r a' I am superior ' and * I am at least as good as
you ' as against mutual fraternal serviceability of elder and younger ; the
greater insistence upon one's rights rather than duties ; and the whole
development of the mechanico-industrial civilisation ' of the titans ' of the
modern west, with its endeavour to control ' nature ' by means of external
machinery, as distinguished from the pastoral-agricultural civilisation ' of
the gods ' of the ancient world, with its endeavour to commune with
* nature ' by means of internal living and subtler senses. In the compre-
H&psive theosophical phraseology, all these issue from the great develop-
jnt of * the fifth principle ' or manas. in ' the fifth race ' : ' titans ' and
* gods ' being the same j I v a s, taking turns, in different moods, and ages.
PEACE, CH. Vl] WESTERN PHILOSOPHERS 57
metaphysical bearing, it left for long entirely to theology,
though, of course, the later thinkers have not been able
to avoid a survey of the whole field of life from the
standpoint they ultimately reached.
Thus it has happened that Locke (born, 1632, in
Britain) decided that what was called ' mind * was a
tabulit rasa, a clean slate, had no ' innate ideas ', and
that all its contents were written on it by experience of
the outer world of 4 matter ' ; nihil est in intellectu quod
non fuerit in sensu, there is nothing in the intellect
which is not given to it by the senses. Leibnitz (b. 1646,
in Germany) swung back towards idealism, and pithily
criticised Locke by adding these words nisi ipse intellects,
except intellect itself. The periodic cyclical duel, or rather
duet, was repeated by Berkeley and Hume. Berkeley,
(b. 1685), enquiring into the relation of knower and known,
under the names of mind and matter, came to the conclu-
sion that the very being of matter is its perceptibility by
mind. Its esse is its percipi. What matter is, apart from
its cognisability by mind, we cannot say ; indeed, we
may well say, it is nothing apart from mind. Thus,
that which we have regarded so long as out of us, apart
from us, independent of us, is in reality dependent on us,
is within us ; ' without is within '.'
Hume (b. 1711) came after Berkeley. He may be said
to have shown with equal cogency that, if the being of
matter is perceptibility, the being of mind is percipience ;
1 }. H. Stirling's English translation of Schwegler's History o/
Philosophy, p. 419 (Annotations).
58 ' WITHIN ' AND * WITHOUT ' [SCIENCE OF
that if we do not know matter except as it is known
almost an Irishism, (Bishop Berkeley was an Irish
Bishop I), but with a special fullness of significance we
also do not know mind except as it knows, and apart
from what it knows. What is mind but something
cognising something ? Vacant mind, empty of all cogni-
tion, we know nothing about ; therefore ' within is without. 9
Thus, then, between Berkeley and Hume, the status
quo of the problem was restored, and the shopkeeper in
his shop and the ploughman at his plough might well feel
delighted that these two philosophers in combination
were no wiser than they, though each taken separately
might have appeared something very fearfully profound ;
that the, net product of these mountains in labour was
that mind was that which knew matter, and that matter
was that which was known by mind. Yet something
seemed to have been added to general knowledge. A very
close and intimate tie, an unbreakable nexus, of complete
interdependence between mind and matter now clearly
distinguished, even as ' opposites ' had been made
apparent, as was not before apparent, to those who had
not travelled along the paths of enquiry trodden by
Berkeley and Hume, in their company, or in that of
their elders and predecessors in the race of thinkers, or,
it may be, by themselves and alone. The problem was
therefore the richer for the labours of these philosophers,
and had now a newer and Deeper significance.
Kant (b. 1724) took it up at this stage. The tug-of-
war between materialism (or * sensism/ which tends to
PEACE, CH. Vl] ' THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES ' 59
pass into * sensualism' on the ethical side), and idealism (or
1 mentalism ', which tends to grow, ethically and practi-
cally, into ' unpractical mysticism '), went on. What is the
nature, what are the laws, of this unbreakable bond be-
tween mind and matter ? What are the two ? How do they
affect each other ? ' Within is without ' and ' without is
within f is all right enough : but this mutual absorption
shows independence as well as interdependence. Two men
may appear to be standing on each other's shoulders by
bending, bowlike, in opposite directions ; but even this can
be only appearance ; each, or at least one, must have a
separate, open or secret, fulcrum, standing-ground. After
many years' hard thinking, Kant came to the conclusion
that each did have such a separate standing-ground. Be-
hind mind was a * thing-in-itself,' and behind matter was
a ' thing-in-itself ' ' ; and from these two noumena there
1 Compare the ^3<3$[OT. s v a-1 a k s h a $ a, ' own-mark, ' of the
Sankhya and the Bau^dhas. The Samskr,t words, taj-tva, * that-
ness/ and tan-matra, 'that alone* or ' the nature, maker, measure,
essential characteristic, of that/ convey the same idea as ' thing-in-
itself/ but with a fuller and more real and substantial significance.
f^lc*W>, s v-a | m a k a, would be a literal translation of ' thing-in-
itself/ but is not justified .'by usage ; and it is only a variation of sva-
1 a k s h a p a.
These words do not vaguely imply any such elusive will-o'-the-
wisp as Kant's 'thing-in-itself'; e.g., in Sankhya, the eight forms of
Praktfi are all $ a M v a-s, and the five sens-able qualities are all | a n-m a-
tras. In the Veganta, the expression Ajma-tattva, 'Self-fact, Self-
essence/ is frequent. A ' fact/ ' essence ' substance ', having a specific.
defining, demarcating, unique characteristic, is a* that ' or ' that-ness,"
{5Hva;and the characteristic quality, in the case of the five sens-able
substances or true 'elements/ is the |an-ma|ra, i.e., the sens-able
qualities known as sound, touch, colour-form, taste, and smell. Bhagcr-
vaf<t, III. xxvi, uses the expressions shab4a-ma(ra ( ' sound only, pure
sound, sound-continuum', also sparsha-, rapa-, rasa-, gan<)ha-
m&$ram, 'pure tact, color-shape, taste, odour only/ i.e., continua,
highest genera, of these.
60 EASTERN' AND WESTERN WAYS [SCIENCE OF
irradiated and coruscated, spontaneously and by inherent
nature, phenomena which entangled themselves with each
other and produced what we know as mind and matter.
But, Kant added, the phenomena that issued from the
Some further observations re western ' cpistemologists '.
It may be noted here that the Indian philosophies, Darshanas,
1 Views ' (of the Universe), ' Outlooks ' (upon Life), do not approach the
problem that occupied the above-mentioned western thinkers, in the
manner of the latter. Indeed it may be said that they do not discuss that
particular problem, in that particular form, at all. They all, more
or less, with slight variations, take it for granted, as undisputed and in-
disputable, and not needing discussion or enquiry, that the ' mind '
subject, jiva, chitta, vishayi, has three aspects or functions,
is triune, knower-desirer-actor ; and that 'matter '-object, jada,
,c h e* t y a, vishaya, has also three aspects, is tri-ime, known-desired-
manipulated, or cognisability-desirabilit y-movability . J i v a-c h 1 1 1 a,
as a whole, is said to possess the faculty or function of ' memory ',
whence its name chitta, from c h i, to gather, to store up. The Sankhya
treatment of Purusha-subject and Prakrti-object, may be said perhaps
to be like the western philosophers' treatment of knower and known ; yet
is different ; * psycho- physical parallelism ' is nearer to it. ' So many men,
(bodies, faces), so many minds ' ; yet there is something in common, too,
ttm-ting them all; making some understanding possible amidst much
misunderstanding ; Unity in Multiplicity.
In Sankhya, Purusha-Spirit is Pure Consciousness, C h i n-m a t r a ;
and all the details &&& particulars, that are commonly ascribed, some
to 'mind', intelligence, understanding, reason, (as the words are ordi-
narily understood and used), f.i., the Kantian ' forms ' and ' categories ',
and the rest to,- matter '. i.e., the multifarious congeries of countless
sensations and sense-objects, the Kantian ' matter ' or ' material ',
which the ' forms ' are supposed to sort out and arrange all these
are assigned to Prakrti-Nature (-Matter-Energy) ; and relational laws-and-
facts, ' forms-and-material ', genera-and-species (from summa genera to
in-fima species, individuals, singulars), universals- (generals) -and- parti-
culars, all arise together-, all are 'objects', seen in unbreakable,
indivisible, connection ; though they are distinguishable, while insepara-
ble, and though the seeing, the discerning, of the inseparability-with-
distinctness, of both series, of facts and of relations, becomes clearer
and clearer with the evolutionary growth of ' mind-body ' ; which
evolutionary growth, in cycles, is fully recognised and declared at length
in the Purapa-History, and also, much more briefly, of course, in the
Upanishafs and Vojanta-works.
The ' categories ' of Kant are dealt with aspacj-arthasin Vaishe-
shika-parshana ; six are the main, (Jravya (substance or substantiality),
Runa (quality, attribute, specificate, determinative), karma ductility.
PEACE, CH. Vl] OF TREATING 'CATEGORIES* 61
mental thing-in-itself were few in number add took the
shape of ' universal ' laws and * forms,' ' categories ', into
which the far more numerous ' particular ' phenomena
ttfat streamed from the material thing-in-itself as
activity) as one triplet, and as another triad, s a many a (universality
or generality), vishdsha (particularity, or singularity, or individu-
ality), and (this is specially noteworthy, for it seems to be absent from
the list of Kant, and subsequent German philosophers have, apparently,
not named it specifically as a distinct 'category) sam-av-aya (inse-
parability), mutual inherence, togetherness. Later, ' modern ' adherents
and exponents of the system have added a seventh to the six, viz.,
a-bhava (non-being, non-existence), distinguished into four sorts,
atyanfa-abhava (eternal, utter, non-being), prag-abhava (ab-
sence or non-existence before coming into existence and manifestation),
pra-(}h vam sa-abhava (non-existence after destruction and disap-
pearance), and any-onya-abhSva (mutual non-existence, each
being-not, not-being, what the other is ; Hegel's ' reciprocal negation',
'mutual determination/ Spinoza's omnis negatio est deter minatio,
'all determination is negation', seem to embody much the same idea).
Under each of the other six, also, are grouped many subordinate ones
(some of which are equivalents of those mentioned by Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, but not by Kant),
The ' laws of thought ', the subject-matter of western ' logic ' (in the
common sense of the word, not Hegel's), and the triad of term-
proposition-reasoning, or concept-(or notion)-judgment-syllogism, or
(Hegelian) apprehension- judgment- reason (or notion), pacja-vakya-
m a n a, together with their subsidiaries, major premiss, minor premiss;
conclusion, various forms of syllogism, etc., are dealt with in *the
Nyaya ; which is the science-and-art of correct thinking ; as Vyakarana,
Grammar, is that of correct speaking-and-writing, correct expression of
thought. But note that Nyaya is not mere and wholly sterile deductive
logic, as that logic, in strictness, must be ; (as Hegel too recognises, see
Wallace, The Logic of Hegel, p. 184, edn. of 1874) ; but is induction-
deduction in combination ; first induction, by the method of concomi-
tant variations, agreement-and -difference, anvaya-vyatire'ka, and
then deduction.
Psychology, pure and applied, is the subject-matter of Sankhya and
Yoga ; Ethics, sin-and-merit, vice-and-virtue, right-and-wrong, good-and-
evil, exertion-and-destiny, freewill-and-fate, self-dependence-and -other-
dependence, are the Subject-matter of Mimairisa ; Metaphysic, the ulti-
mate problems of Being-and-Nothing, Unchanging-and-Becoming, Truth-
and-Untruth, Reality-and- Illusion, God-and-Nature, Spirit-and-Matter,
Subject-and-Object, God -and -Man, Universal-Self-and-Individual-self,
Param-Atm&-and-Jiv-atma, Universal-and-Singular. Self-and-Not-self,
and the Relation between these Pairs of Opposites, (Jvam-dva m
these i^e dealt with
62 CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE [SCIENCE OF
4 sensations ' the * matter ' of knowledge, as opposed to
its ' form,' in technical language fitted in exactly and
helplessly ; and so an organic whole of systematised
knowledge was produced.
i
The other systems too have something to say on these ultimate
questions ; and, in this reference, Vaisheshika and Nyayaare thought to
favor what has been described before^ (pp. 7-11) as aram bha-vaga;
Sankhya and Yoga, parinama-vaga; Mi mams a and
a t m a-v a <J a (as s v a-k ar m a-v a <J a, the supremacy of the Self's will-and-
action), and v i var ta-vada ; but they are so thought, generally and
popularly, not quite precisely and accurately ; though ' popular ' im-
pressions and broad views are seldom wholly wrong, and often more
correct and more useful than specialist's and expert 1st 's minutiae and
* exactitudes '. Subtle differences on minor points, mostly verbal, due to
use of the same words in several, sometimes even opposite, senses, and
consequent misunderstandings ; due frequently to even mere controversial
and quarrel-some ' cussedness ' ; or craving to pose as ' original ' and
1 superior 'such differences, for the pleasure of differing, are without
end, in the later exponents of the six systems ; also of the several
schools of thought into which the original Buddhist and Jaina philo-
sophies broke up. The primal vasana-s, ' sub-supra-conscious urges
of ego-ism, are active in wduld-be philosophers also, in east and west
alike. The earlier Sutra-and-Bhashya writers of ' Aphorism-and-Com-
mentary ' differ seldom ; and then they indicate that whatever differ-
ence there is, is due to difference of viewpoint and naming.
* A few abridged sentences from Wallace's The Logic of Hegel.
' Prolegomena ', pp. Iviii-lxi, may help to elucidate further what has
been said above in this note, and also in the preceding and the succeed-
ing text of this chapter. " Locke as well as Kant began with an
assumption based upon abstraction. This assumption led to a fatal
flaw in their conclusions. Both took the understanding or reason
to be some sort of thing or entity, however much they differed as to the
peculiar nature of its constitution, or the amount of its original contents.
Both confronted the mind to an external world, an object of knowledge
existing apkrt by itself, and coming in certain ways and under certain
forms Into Connection with the subject-mind, likewise existing apart by
itself. In ibis state of absolute disruption, with two independent
centres in subject and object, how was it possible to get from the one to
the other ? This was the common puzzle from Descartes to Spelling,
Locke and Kant included^ " ( ' but,' the present writer would add, ' Fichte
excluded '). " For its solution, all sorts of incredible 'devices have been
suggested, such as pre-established harmony, divine interposition, and
impressions with ideas. It has given rise to two opposite views, some-
times known as Idealism vs. Realism, sometimes as Spiritualism vs.
Materialism." (Medieval Conceptualism, Nominalism, Realism, etc.,
ring changes on the same theme). "But every true philosophy tpt&st be
PEACE, CH. Vl] ERROR AND CORRECTION 63
But this was worse and worse. The shopkeeper and
the ploughman might be excused for staring aghast. We
had two difficulties to deal with before, viz., mind and
matter ; now we have four, viz., two (or, one for each
both idealist and realist. Realism asserts the rights of the several and
particular existences ; Idealism asserts the thorough inter-dependence of
all that exists. ' ' (The former exhibits the Many ; the latter, the One
which includes and interweaves the Many). " Neither mind nor so-called
external world, ' subject * and ' object ', are, either of them, self-subsistent
existences. The objective world and the subject are really one ; they
spring from a common source, which Kant called the ' original syn-
thetic unity of apperception ' . . . " (In plain language, the original
Unity of Self-Consciousness, which synthesises, interlinks, Self and Not-
Self, against which Not-Self, by contrast to which Not-Self, by negation
of which Not-Self, the Self eternally realises It-Self. Kant seems to have
only glimpsed, very late, that the Self was the one and on(e)ly Thing-
in-it-Self, behind both outer and inner). "The subjective world, the
Mind of Man, is really constituted by the same force as the objective
World of Nature. Hegel came to prove that God is the ' original
synthetic Unity/ from which the external world and the Ego have issued
by differentiation, and in which they return to Unity." (Again, in plain
words, ' God is the Supreme Universal Self, whose Unity synthesises,
posits-and -negates, creates- (main tains) -destroys, all Multiplicity '). " The
deepest craving of thought, the fundamental problem of philosophy, is
to discover the Nature and Law of that Totality or primeval Unity,
which appears in the double aspect of matter and mind."
It will have been noted by the reader that the fatal flaw t referred
to in the extract, is the flaw of extremism, as usual ; by omitting the
italicised words * apart by itself ', ' absolute ', ' independent ', the flaw
disappears. As will be expounded in the subsequent chapters, Vldanta
tells us that the Ab-sol-ute, solved, salved, from all limitations, Param-
Atma, the supreme Self, is Pratyag-Stma, abstract Sell .plus MGla-prakrti,
abstract Not-Self, which appear as mind^/MS-matter, man-/tts-nature,
inner-^/ws -outer, Ji
Yet, the occurrence of the ' fatal flaw ' has not been useless. It was
inevitable, even desirable, that the ' philosophic mind ' should have erred
away for a while from the ' thesis ' of Unity of Subject-Object, into the
' anti-thesis ' of the ' disruption into two or Many ', in order to re-cover,
with fuller knowledge, the ' syn-thesis ' of that primal Unity ; in the terms
of the Git a, kata, One-ness, thence Prthag-bhava (visjara),
Separateness (Multiplication), then again k a - s \ h a-t & (re-establishment
in One-ness), according to the Law of Duality, of contradictory opposites,
appearing, and also balancing, neutralising, cancelling, each other, in the
One. JBy Error and Correction* an enrichment of thought is achieved.
64 MANY THEORIES OF MANY SCHOOLS [SCIENCE OF
mind ?, and one for each material object, therefore count-
less), things-in-themselves, and two (or rather an endless
number) of things-in-other-than-themselves ! What are
these things-in-themselves ? Some ran away with the idea
that they were the unknowable ultimates of the universe;
and whenever that which it most concerns us to know,
that which is most necessary for us to know, that which
is a matter of life or of death for us to be intimate with or
strangers to whenever that comes up before us, then,
these people declared, we must shut our eyes and turn
away and say : " We cannot know you ; the limits of
human knowledge have been already reached and circum-
scribed." Others, impressed by the stately technical
harness and trappings, big unusual words, of the philo-
sophy, but not caring to examine beneath those externals,
took to themselves the belief that these things-in-them-
selves were knowable in some mystic state ; unmindful
that the very definition of ' thing- in-itself ' excluded any
such possibility of cognition; that, as soon as anything
is cognised, it ceases, by that very fact, to be a thing-in-
itself; that its thing-in- itself retires inwards, beneath
and behind that which has been cognised and has
therefore become an attribute and a phenomenon veiling
the now deeper thing-in-itself. Thus many theories and
schools arose on the basis of the labours of Kant and
under the shadow of his " critical philosophy/' as it
was called. But the plain and patent objection to the
conclusions of Kant was that instead of an explanation
he had given us only an increase of confusion. There
PEACE, CH. Vl] LAW OF PARSIMONY 65
was no superior law provided by Kant, l as was most
imperatively needed, to regulate and govern the fitting
of sense-phenomena .(the matter) into the so-called laws,
(the forms) of mind, the mind-phenomena. If there
was something inherent in the sense-phenomena which
guided them instinctively to close v/ith the right laws,
then that same instinct might well enable them to
marshal themselves out into systematic knowledge too
without the help of any of such mental laws. On the
other hand, if the mind-phenomena had something
in them which would enable them to select the right
sense-phenomena for operation, then they might also
very well have in themselves the power to create such
phenomena without the aid of any material thing-in-
itself. Kant himself seems to have felt these difficulties
in his later days, and to have begun to see that the
mental thing-in-itself was nothing else than the Ego,
and that this Ego was the law and the source of all laws.
Perhaps he had also begun to see that the Ego was
not only thing-in-itself to mind, but also, in some way
or other, thing-in-itself to matter too. Perhaps, also
1 Ueberweg, History of Philosophy (English translation), II, 216.
(Art. " Schelling "), and Stirling's Text-book to Kant, and Translation
of Schwegler's History of Philosophy, (Annotations, Art. " Kant ").
Another difficulty which seems to have been left unsolved by Kant
is as to the number of these things-in-themselves. Is there only one
thing-in-itself for all minds (or mind ?) on the one hand, and all matters
(or matter ?) on the other ; or one each for each person and each thing ;
and if the latter, how to define person and thing respectively ?
Such objections to Kant's views have been taken by Fichte, Schel-
ling, Hegel, Schopenhauer* Stirling, Wallace, Caird, and other
thinkers.
5
66 ONE SOURCE OF MIND & MATTER [SCIENCE OF
that all individual ego-s were somehow unified in the
Supreme Universal Ego. But it was not given to him
to work out and attain those last results in that life
of his ; and Fichte took up and onward the work left
unfinished by Kant.
Fichte clearly saw the necessity, in the interests of
mental satisfaction, true internal liberty, and respite from
restless doubt, of deducing the whole mass and detail of
the universe from a single principle with which the
human j I v a could find the inviolable refuge of identity ;
and he also saw therefore that this principle must be the
Ego. Fichte is the western thinker, who, of all western
thinkers, ancient and modern, known to the present writer,
appears to have come nearest the final truth, attained
closest to the ultimate explanation of the universe. He
divides with Schelling and Hegel, in current public judg-
ment, the high honour of leading a large number of
thinkers in the West, away from the deadly pits of blind
belief on the one hand and blind scepticism on the other,
towards the magnificent health-giving mountain heights of
a reasoned knowledge of the boundlessness and unsurpass-
able dignity of the j I v a's life. Some incline to place
Hegel's work higher than Fichte's ; especially Stirling,
who spent a whole lifetime on the study of German
thinkers, and whose opinion on any matter connected
with them is therefore entitled to great respect. Yet it
may be said that, though Hegel's work was fuller in detail
and more encyclopaedic in its comprehension of the sci-
ences than Fichte's, the latter's enunciation of the f basic
P. CH. Vl] FICHTE GOES FURTHER THAN HEGEL 67
principle of the World-Process is more centre-reaching,
more luminous one would almost sa)' wholly luminous,
were it not for a last remaining unexplained difficulty
than Hegel's. And, therefore, it may also be said that
Fichte has gone a step further than Hegel. The man's
noble and * transparent personal life deserved too, that he
should see more closely and clearly the nobility and trans-
parence of the truth. Hegel's life does not seem to have
been so selfless as Fichte's, according to the biographers
of the two ;. therefore he probably saw the truth under a
thicker veil. 1 Jt may be that if Fichte had lived longer
he would have explained the last difficulty that remains
behind at the end of his work ; he would then have
applied a master-key to all the problems and the sciences
that Hegel has dealt with, and opened up their hearts
with a surer touch. It may also be that if Hegel had
lived longer, and not been suddenly cut off by an epide-
mic, he might have completed his system, (as Stirling
suggests) which also suffers from a single but very vital,
pervasive, and perpetual want, by means of Fichte's
single principle, and so have done the same work that
1 To western philosophy and science, such considerations may seem
irrelevant. Ancient metaphysic says that without ethical qualification of
v a ir agy a t v iveka, etc., Vedanta cannot be successfully studied ;
other sciences may be. The reason is : Ve\}anta is the Science of the
Infinite ; all others are sciences of the Finite. To enter on this realisa-
tion of the Infinite, the ' individual ' must have begun to turn from
' individualism ' in its triple form ofavi<Jy5-kama-karma> cling-
ing to the Finite, intellectually, emotionally, and practically, i.e., in
thought, feeling, and action ; and turn towards ' universalism ' in its
corresponding threefold form of j Sana-bhakti-virak$i, i.e., re-
cognition of the small self's identity with the Great Self, philanthropic
altruism, and asceticism. Taint of selfish ego-ism dims vision of the
True Self.
68 LAW OF RELATIVITY OR DUALITY [SCIENCE OF
might have been done by Fichte. In the combination of
the two lies great promise of satisfaction. On the whole,
then, because of the view that Fichte has gone further
than Hegel, what has to be said here about Hegel will be
said first and Fichte taken up afterwards.
But before taking up Hegel, a word should be given
to Schelling, who has very much in common with HegeL
The two were contemporaries and associates of each other
and partly of Fichte's also, both being greatly influenced
by Fichte. But Schelling failed to make such a lasting
impression on European philosophy as did Hegel, because
of repeated radical changes in his views, and lack of such
consistency, stringency, and rigour of thought and genetic
. . u^^a^i* teO&n. *
construction as Hegel carried into effect. The net addi-
tion made by Schelling to the stock of Western philo-
sophy may be said to be a deeper and fuller view of the
Law of Relativity, viz., the law that two Opposites
imply each other. The point which Hegel emphasised
^so much does not seem to have occurred to him, that
such opposites further inhere in a third something, which
is not exclusively and wholly either the one or the other,
but somehow includes and contains both, and is itself
the summation of the two. What Hamilton and
Mansel of England derived from Schelling, and Her-
bert Spencer from them, is that as everything implies
its opposite, so the whole of the world, the whole
mass of relatives, of opposites, being taken together
as one term which may be called the Relative
this whole would necessarily imply its opposite, the
PEACE, CH. Vl] GOD-UNKNOWABLE-ABSOLUTE 69
Absolute. Hamilton and Mansel vaguely called this
Absolute, God ; Herbert Spencer called it the Unknow-
able. In one sense this conclusion is true ; in another it
is only a verbal quibble, so that critics have not been
wanting to point out that the Absolute and the Relative
make a new relation, a new pair of opposites, which also
requires an opposite in a higher absolute, and so on
endlessly. 1
' Hegel put a stop to this unfruitful and fatuous end-
lessness of higher and higher absolutes, which really
explains nothing and is a contradiction in terms, by show-
ing that when all opposites had been once heaped together
under the Relative, no further opposite could be left out-
side of this mass in the shape of an Absolute ; that if
such a train of reasoning was to be followed at all, the
logical conclusion should be that the Absolute was im-
manent in the mass of the Relative ; that every thing
contained its opposite within itself, and that the true
Absolute would be complete when opposites had been
resolved into each other, so that no further search for a
higher Absolute was left to make* Hegel's most impor-
tant contribution to metaphysic accordingly seems to be
a full development and application of the law that two
opposites, two extremes, always find their reconciliation
in a third something, a mean, which, as said before, is
neither the one nor the other exclusively but both taken
together. Applying this principle to the World-Process
1 For various criticisms of Spencer's view on this subject, see Caird,
Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, ch. i ; and also Spencer's
own Replies to Criticisms, published in his collected Essays.,
70 BEING, NOTHING, BECOMING [SCIENCE OF
in the mass, he first analyses it into two ' pure ' opposites,
* pure ' Being and ' pure ' Nothing, and then proceeds to
state that the collapse of these two into each other is * Be-
coming,' is the World- Process. The fact that * Becoming *
is the conjunction of Being and Nothing, and that every
particular combines and reconciles within itself two
opposites ; and the consequent law that the reconciliation
of two extremes should be always sought for in the mean,
and that extremes should always be regarded as a violent
and unnatural disruption of the mean this fact and this
law are profoundly significant and very helpful to bear
in mind in all departments of life. But yet the mere
statement of them, which is practically all that Hegel
has done, leaves behind a sense of dissatisfaction. The
why and the how are not explained ; and the why and
the how necessarily come up when we begin with two
and not with one. If we begin with One and can main-
tain it Changeless, then none may afek why and how.
Merely to say that every change implies a falling of
Being into Nothing and of Nothing into Being is per-
fectly true ; but is true only as breaking down some old
preconceived notions obstructive to further progress, true
as a stimulus to further enquiry; it is not at all
satisfactory in itself or helpful towards the solution
of the final doubt. It was declared long before Hegel,
and declared a thousand times, and the fact is indeed
so patent that he who runs may read and even with
the eyes of the flesh, that the world of things is
Being, sat, as well as Non-Being, a sat ; that it is both
PEACE, CH. vi] HEGEL'S * WALKING ON THE HEAD ' 71
and that it is neither ; tut the statement remains dark,
unlighted ; the fact remains unintelligible. Where is
the lamp to light it up and to make all clear at once ?
Then this speaking in the third person, Being and
Nothing, instead of in the first and second person, Self
and Not- Self (' I ' and ' you '),* re-invests the whole prob-
lem with the old strangeness which we were at so much
pains to transform into the home-feeling that goes with
the words Self and Not-Self. Being means Self to us ; and
Nothing is nothing else than Not-Self (in the sense of a
denial of the Self), if it is anything at all. To talk of Being
and Nothing, after Fichte has spoken of Ego and Non-
Ego, is to take a regressive rather than a progressive step.
Indeed, this may be said, in a sense, to be the greatest
defect of Hegel's system. To speak in terms of 'pure
universal notions,' of Being and Nothing, etc., instead of
Self and Not-Self and their derivatives ; to imply that
' Spirit ' (in the sense of Self) is subsequent to ' pure im-
material thought ' ; this is to walk on the head instead
of the feet. Perhaps a little ' progress ' may be made 'even
in that way. But the falls, the lapses of intelligence, must
be very frequent ; and the whole process is invested with
an immense and most unnatural strain. Of course, it is
clear that, if we would deal with psychology and meta-
physic, we must intro-spect ; we must look inwards, more
or less ; we must turn our -eyes in a direction opposite
to that in which we usually employ them in ordinary life;
we must become * introvert ', rather than ' extravert ',
1 Shankara, Shariraka-Bhashya, the very first paragraph.
72 INTROSPECTION [SCIENCE OF
for the time. But, while our eyes are ' in-turned ', or even
closed, our hands have to be kept, however lightly, on
the ' outer ' also ; we should not lose touch of and with the
* outer * World altogether; for, then, the 'inner* will vanish
from consciousness also ; * inner and outer ', ' abstract and
concrete ', both will fall asleep in Chaos, slumber. 1
1 As regards the difficulty of V^danta, Metaphysic-Philosophy, the
Science of the Infinite, and of the introspection needed for the study
thereof, Katha Upanishaj (II. i. 1) tells us,
*ifrf5|
* Very subtle, not easy to be understood, is this highest 'Duty', (of
achieving, this highest Knowledge of the Self. The Self-born (appearing,
illusorily, to be born in a body, a not-Self) pierced the senses ot*- wards ;
therefore the individualised self looketh ow^- wards, not in- wards, not
to and at it-Self. One here, one there, desirous of Immortality, resolutely
turning vision in- wards, saw him-Self, the Self." R difficulty of Hegel,
Wallace, in The Logic of Hegel, ' Prolegomena ' (p. civ ; first edition)
says: " There- are two degrees in the hindrances against mastering
Hegelianism. The first difficulty is to reach the point of view from which
the system starts. It is, says Hegel himself, ' like learning to walk upon
our heads ' . The second demand to move in the ether of this absolute
thought is even harder than the first." Stirling also, in The Secret of
Hegel (p. 81) writes, "Hegel himself allows us to say ' We feel as if
we were standing on our heads' ..." One gets the impression, from
the English translations of Hegel, and also from various facts of his life,
as regards his relations with Schelling and others, that he was too desir-
ous to be ' original ' a common weakness of ' thinkers ', but excusable
within narrow limits only, i.e., while confined to joyous, boyish
* self '-testing, ' self '-delight, and play. We may therefore decline
Hegel's invitation ' to stand on our heads; and may suggest to those of
his way of thinking, that, instead, they may practice, what is known in
Yoga as, the sham bhavi or vaishpavi mudra, eyes nearly but
not quite closed ; attention turned in-ward to the Great Self behind the
small self's workings ; but not wholly oblivious of the out- ward, the Not-
Self. Ve<Janta does not recognise ' absolute thought ' an expression of
frequent recurrence in the English expositions of Hegel ; it recognises
the ' Absolute Self ', behind and around all ' thought ' ; it is the same as
Absolute Self-Consciousness, including all Not-Self, all not-selves, all
4 this-es ' ; so that, ultimately, and eternally, Abstract and Concrete,
Inner and Outer, all merge into the One which is Number-less.
P. CH. Vl] ' PURE-S ' CAN'T CREATE ' PARTICULARS 73
Moreover, while pure Being and pure Nothing might
well be allowed to combine into pure Becoming, whence
comes this endless multiplicity of particular becomings,
or rather ' becomes,' i.e., of special things that have
become ? Hegel does not seem to have explained this ;
although it seems necessary and even quite easy to do so
from the standpoint of a true definition of the Absolute.
A single word explains it. Has Hegel said that word ?
It does not appear that he has. If he has, then there is
nothing more to be said against him on this score. Yet
the story goes that Krug once asked Hegel to deduce his
particular writing quill from the general principle that
Being and Nothing make Becoming, and that Hegel
could reply with a smile only. Stirling talks of Krug's
' ridiculous expectation ' ; it seems to others that Krug's
request was perfectly fair and legitimate. The arbitrari-
ness of Krug's particular quill does require to be ex-
plained away. Wallace (op. cit., p. clxxi) says, " Hegel's
system . . . can only unveil what is, ... it has no
vocation to say why it is, or how it can be so " ; and
Hegel himself says (op. cit. p. 20), " The idea of Nature,
when it is individualised, loses itself in a maze of chance
. . . points of existence, kinds, distinctions, which are
determined by sport and adventitious incidents ; . . .
phenomena are regulated by no law, but depend upon
arbitrary influences ". Yet the why is vitally important
to us, lest we become such chance- phenomena.
Again, Hegel's fundamental proposition, the very
ibase and foundation of his system viz., that Being and
74 HEGEL'S PETITIO PRINCIPII [SCIENCE OF
Nothing are the same and yet opposite, and that their
mutual mergence makes Becoming, which, he says, is the
true Absolute is wholly unsatisfactory. It may be true,
nay, it is true, in a certain sense, that Being and Nothing
are the same and yet opposed ; but it is not Hegel who
tells us what that certain sense is. It may be true, nay,
it is true, in a certain sense, that Becoming is the
Absolute ; but it is not Hegel who tells us what that
sense is. On the contrary, the general impression is that
Hegel began with a violent petitio principii when he
assumed that Being and Nothing, though opposite are the
same, and so took for granted the very reconciliation of
opposites which it was his business to prove. After
assuming that the two most opposed of all opposites are
identical with each other, it is truly easy to reconcile all
other opposites that may come up for treatment later.
Then, what is meant by saying or implying that
Becoming is the Absolute ? If the word Becoming is
taken to mean the totality of the World-Process from the
beginning to the end ot beginningless and endless time,
then of course an absolute may be meant, but such an
absolute remains absolutely unilluminative and useless.
Hegel says (as summarised by Schwegler) : " The absolute
is, firstly, pure immaterial thought ; secondly, Aeter-isation
of pure thought, disruption of thought into the infinite
atomism of time and space Nature ; thirdly, it returns,
out of this its self-externalisation and self -alienation,,
back into its own self, it resolves the heterisation of
nature, and only in this way becomes at last actual*
PEACE, CH. VI] AND HIS CHANGING ABSOLUTE 75'
self-cognisant, thought, Spirit." ' Perhaps, then, he
means, not the totality of the world-process, but, a
growing, maturing, absolute ; in the course of the
growth of which, the cropping up of anything, of count-
less things, hetera, ' others ', im-pure, concrete, out of
the pure, abstract, remains a mystery, unexplained as ever.
But the absoluteness of an evolving, changing, thing or
thought is a very doubtful thing and thought. Indeed,
there should.be no distinction of thing and thought in the
Absolute ; and this distinction is one of the very
hardest and subtlest tasks of metaphysic to explain away. 8
The general impression left by Hegel is that the Absolute
is an idea, which finds its gradual expression and mani-
festation and realisation in the things, the becomings, of
the world-process ; and that, consequently, there is a dif-
ference of nature between the idea and the things. But
if there is any such difference, then the things fall outside
of the idea and have to be explained, and the whole task
begins again. But even apart from this difficulty, which-
constitutes a separate doubt by itself, is the main diffi*
culty of a changing absolute. The elementary V6da-
texts, which helped as temporary guides at an earlier stage
of the journey, and which said that the Self multiplied
it- Self into Many, had to be abandoned (for the time being
at least) for want of sufficient reason and justification-
1 Note the thrice-repeated ' self ' here ' Thought cannot be, without
theprius of Self as basis.
- The thirty-two thousand shlokas or two-line stanzas of the Yog&'
Vasishtha constitute the great and unique Epic, in Saipskr.! literature, of*
this particular Herculean labour.
76 MEANING OF JlVAN-MUKTA [SCIENCE OF
for the changing moods of a Supreme. We have been
pining all along for changelessness, for rest and peace
.amidst this fearful turmoil. Hegel gives us an endless-
ness of change. He says the Absolute-Universal realises
itself, through Nature-Particular, in and into the Indivi-
dual-Singular ; i.e., the already supremd and perfect God
developes into and finds himself in perfected man, self-
conscious man, (typified by Jesus). 1 A doctrine unsatis-
factory enough in the mouth of anyone, and much more
so in the mouth of Hegel who knows nothing, or at least
indicates nothing of the knowledge, of the vast evolution
and involution of worlds .upon worlds, material elements
and j I v a s, of the incessant descent of Spirit into Matter
and Its re-ascent into it-Self, which is outlined in the
Purdtuis. What does Hegel say as to where and when
the Absolute began its evolution and when it will
complete and end it ? Has he anywhere entered into the
question whether this actual self-cognisant spirit, this
perfected individual, this perfected man, who has achieved
that combination of reason with desire or will which
makes the true freedom, the true internal liberty, m o k s h a
as altruistic synthesis and balancing ofjnana, bhakti,
and karma, knowledge, selfless desire, selfless action
whether such an individual is completed in and arises
at a definite point of time, or is only an infinitely reced-
ing possibility of the endless future ? Also, whether many
1 The element of truth in this view is to be found in the Vlganta
doctrine of the J i v an - m u k t a, the Sufi's insan-ul-kamil, the Biblical
phrase ' Sons of God ", (Sons, in the plural, not only one ' Son ' Jesus,
who is on)y a typical J i v a n-m u k t a of high quality, ' freed from egoism
while still in the body ').
PEACE, CH. vi] HEGEL'S MANIFOLD DEFECTS 77
such are possible at one time or not ? There were millions
of individualised human jlvas upon earth in the time of
Hegel. H#d the Absolute finished evolution in them or
any of them, and if not, as it clearly had not, then why
not ? Such are the legitimate questions that may in all
fairness be put to Hegel. He does not seem to have
answered them. Yet each and every one of them should
and can be answered from the standpoint of a complete
metaphysic.
It is not probable that Hegel in this birth, and in the
life and surroundings of the period he lived and worked
in, (1770-1831 A.C.), knew all the even partial and one-
sided details about kosmic evolution, which have since
then become accessible to the human race in the West,
not to speak of the complete outlines (though lacking in
detail) which are sketched in the Puranas (and now in*
theosophical literature). He ridicules the doctrine of
rebirth, 1 (which Fichte, Schelling, Goethe, and many
others, poets, writers, thinkers, even physical scientists,
famous in the west, have believed in) ; and shows
thereby, that he did not realise the full significance and 1
extensive application of some of the metaphysical laws
which he himself, or Fichte and Schelling before him,
stated. Yet these particulars of endlessly recurring
cosmic evolution and dissolution, in smaller and larger
cycles, as ascertained by masters of y o g a, and embodi-
ed, in broad outlines, in the extant Puranas and other
1 Hegel, History of Philosophy, English Translation, Vol. I, Art.
1 "Pythagoras".
78 STIRLING'S ADMISSIONS [SCIENCE OF
Samskrt and Prakrt writings (and in theosophical litera-
ture), are alone capable of providing a basis for a true and
comprehensive metaphysic ; for they, in the very act of
pointing out the way to the final goal, explain how they
themselves are inseparately connected with and derived
from that goal. And if Hegel was not acquainted with such
-details, it is no wonder that his metaphysic remains incom-
plete. It is, indeed, a wonder, on the contrary, that it is so
full as it is. It may, on the other hand, be that it was given
to a man who saw so much and so deeply, to see more also,
.and that he did not say all he knew for special internal
or external reasons. This is the view that Stirling takes,
in pointing out Hegel's shortcomings, especially in his
work entitled, What is Thought ? Stirling probably had
not in mind, when stating such a view, anything about
-information derivable by means of a higher development
of human faculties through yoga. What most concerns
us here to know, is that such a lifelong student of Hegel
as Stirling declares, with all the weight and authority of
such study, that there is a radical defect in the system,
.and that a key is wanted which perhaps Hegel might
have given if he had lived longer, that is to say, assuming
that he himself had it. 2
9 See infra \ the close of ch. viii, for the needed rectification of Hegel
by Veijanta. Here, we may quote' what Stirling says, Schwegler's
History of Philosophy, pp. 445. 475: "Whether Hegel's Notion* be
really the pulse of thought- t -that is what is still to be verified that is
what I still doubt. So long as that doubt remains, I am not properly
an Hegelian . *. . Hegel's Logic, though containing much that is of
material importance, is still principally formal. Its first note after all
is said, will never ring quite true ; existence of some kind and existence
of no kind are not the same "
PEACE, CH. Vl] FICHTE'S CLOSER APPROACH 79
We see thus that, while Schelling and Hegel made
a very close approach to the final explanation, they do
not seem to have quite grasped it. Let us now examine
what appears to have been in some respects a closer
approach than theirs.
Fichte, as said before, realised and stated that the
Ego is the only true universal, perfectly unconditioned
in and by (sensuous) matter as well as in and by (in-
tellectual) form (in the technical language of German
thinkers) ; the certainty of which can not possibly be
ruffled by any doubt. And from this universal, he en-
deavoured to deduce the whole of the world-process.
His deduction is usually summed up in three steps :
Ego Ego; Non-Ego is not ^Ego; Ego in part--Non-
Eo, and Non-Ego in part = Ego. 1 There is first the
thesis, the position of identity, * I ' .is ' I ' ; secondly,
there is the antithesis, the op-position of contradiction,
4 I ' is not * Not-I ' ; lastly, there is the synthesis, the
corn-position, i.e., a reconciliation, of the opposites, by
mutual limitation, mutual yielding, a compromise in
which the * I ' becomes, i.e. 9 takes on the characteristics
of, the * Not-I,' and the ' Not-I ' of the ' I '. And this is
entirely and irrefutably in accordance with the facts of
the world-process as they are there under our very eyes.
No western thinker has improved upon this sum-
mary of the essential nature of the world-process ; and
it is difficult to understand how Stirling has failed to give
3 See Adamson, Fichte (Black wood's Philosophical Classics), p. 172,
for explanation of the third proposition.
80 EGO, EMP1RCAL & UNIVERSAL [SCIENCE OF
due meed to this great work. He says regarding Fichte :
" What is said about the universal Ego ... is not
satisfactory. Let us generalise as much as we please,
we still know no Ego but the empirical Ego, and can
refer to none other." 1 Now, with the respect one has
for Stirling's metaphysical acumen, one can only say that
this statement of his is very difficult to understand. For
it is exactly equivalent to the entire denial of the possi-
bility of an ' abstract,' simply because we can never
definitely cognise lanything but a ' concrete ' with our
physical senses. As said before, in dealing with the
process by which the nature of the universal Self is
established, the mere fact of a diversity, of the ' many', of
concretes and particulars, necessarily requires for its
existence, for its being brought into relief, the support
and background of a continuity, a ' unity ', an abstract and
universal. The two, abstract and concrete, universal and
particular, are just as inseparable as back and front ;
though, of course, it is not only possible, but is what we
always actually do, viz., that we distinguish between the
two, and attend more to the one, now, and more to the
other, at another time. But looking for a highest uni-
ersal and a lowest particular, we find that the extremes
meet. The highest universal, (Self It -Self as) Being,
satta-samanya, is also the most irreducible point,
charama-vish6sha, the 'singular' (Jlva or atom).
The universal Ego is also (the essence of) the individual
ego (the so-called empirical ego) ; the universal Being
1 Stirling's Schwegler's History of Philosophy, p. 428.
PEACE, CH. VI] EGO, PRIUS AND ALSO ULTIMUS 81
and the anu, atom, of the Vaisheshika system of
philosophy, correspond to the Pratyag-atma and
the ideal atom which, enshrining a self, is the jlv-
atma. Between tfrese two limits, which are not two but
one, the all-comprehending substratum of all the
world-process, the Infinite which is also the In-
finitesimal, " greatest of the great and also smallest of
the small," there fall and flow all other pseudo-univer-
sals and pseudo-particulars ; pseudo, because each falls
as a particular under a higher universal (or general) and
at the same time covers some lower particulars (specials).
The universal Ego is thus the only true, absolutely cer-
tain and final, universal. " Hegel, in opposition to
Fichte, . . . held that it is ... not the E^p that is
the prius of all reality, but, on the contrary, something
universal, a universal which comprehends within it every
individual." ! This is where the deviation from the
straight path began. It began with Hegel. And the
results were : (1) that dissatisfaction with Hegel which
Stirling confesses to again and again ; and (2) a tacit
reversion, by Stirling himself, to that impregnable posi-
tion of Fichte (as shown throughout Stirling's work,
What is Thought ? in which he endeavours to make out
that the double subject-object, ' I-me,' is the true Ab-
solute).* For if " we know no ego but the empirical ego,"
1 Ibid., p. 315.
* Compare the Sankshepa-Sharlraka ,
*' Only this partless, indivisible, Consciousness is both subject and
object at once,"
6 <*
82 MEANING OF BEING AND NOTHING [SC. OF
how much more do we know no ' being ' but empirical and
particular beings, no * nothing ' but empirical and particular
non-commencements :or destructions. Ego and non-Ego
we understand ; they are directly aqd primarily in our
constitution ; nay, they are the whole of our constitution,
essence and accidence, core and crust, inside and outside,
the very whole of it. But Being and Nothing we under-
stand only through Ego and Non-Ego ; otherwise they
are entirely strange and unfamiliar. Being is nothing else
than pro-position, pre-positing, affirmation, by conscious-
ness, by the ' I ' ; Non-Being is nothing else than op-posi-
tion, centra-position, denial, by that same * I '. Stirling
practically admits as much in What is Thought ? Fichte's
approach, then, is the closer and not Hegel's ; and Stir-
ling's opinion that " the historical value of the method
of Fichte will shrink, in the end, to its influence on
Hegel " * is annulled by his own latest research and find-
ing. The probability indeed, on the contrary, is that
Hegel's work will come to take its proper place in the
.appreciation of students as only an attempt at a filling
and completion of the outlines traced out by the earnest,
intense, noble, and therefore truth-seeing spirit of Fichte.*
1 Stirling's Schwegler, p, 427.
fl Dr. J. H. Stirling, in a very kind letter to the present writer,
*aid : "Dr. Hutchinson Stirling would beg to remark only that he is
not sure that Mr. Bhagavan Das has quite correctly followed the distinc-
tion between Fichte's and Hegel's use of the Ego in deduction of the
categories the distinction at least that is proper to Stirling's inter-
pretation of both ; Stirling holding, namely, that Fichte, while without
provision for an external world, has only an external motive or move-
ment in his Dialectic, and is withal in his deduction itself incomplete ;
whereas Hegel, with provision for externality, is inside of his principle,
and in his deduction infinitely deeper, fuller, and at least completer."
PEACE, CH. Vl] DESCRIPTION, NOT EXAMINATION 83
Hegel's work is a supplementation, by mere descrip-
tion, not at all a deduction or explanation, of the succes-
sive steps in mind-development, from simple sensuous
perceptions to complex intellectual thinking or compre-
hending, in terms of abstract ideas and relations.
Darwinian evolutionism is similar ; it is a description,
not an explanation, of body-development ; it assumes
countless perpetual variations of environments, and corres-
ponding ones in organisms, at every step ; power of vari-
ation is assumed at every step.
By sheer force of intense gaze towards the Truth,
Fichte has reached, even amidst the storm and stress of
a life cast in times when empires were rising and falling
around him, conclusions which were generally reached in
India only with the help of a y o g a-vision developed by
long practice amidst the contemplative calm of forest-
solitudes and mountain-heights. 1 (Perhaps he had been
a disciple in the home of an Indian sage, in a previous
life, and done all the preliminary thinking there !) Page
after page of his work reads like translations from V&Janta
works. Schwegler, apparently unmindful of their value
and even disagreeing with them, sums up the conclusions
I give this extract from Dr. Stirling's letter with the view that it may
help readers to check and correct any errors made in this chapter, in the-
comparative appreciation of Hegel and Fichte.
Professor J. E. McTaggart, of Trinity College, Cambridge, also
isaid, in a letter to the present writer: "... I still maintain that Hegel
has got nearer the truth than Fichte/' x
1 Fichte's lecture on The Dignity of Man (pp. 331-336 of the
Science of Knowledge, translated by A. Kroeger) is full of statements
which might be read as meaning, on Fichte's part, a belief in the evolu-
tion of the j i v - a t m a of the kind described inv44an|ic and theo-
sophical literature, in direct contrast to Hegel's statements.
84 ABSTRACT EGO & ABSOLUTE EGO [SCIENCE OF
of Fichte in words which simply reproduce the conclu-
sions of A-dvait a- Vedanta as now current in India*
Fichte's statement, quoted above, as to the transference
of their characteristics to each other by the Ego and the
Non-Ego, is the language of Shankara.l His distinction
between the absolute Ego and the individual or empirical
ego is the distinction between the higher A t m a and the
j 1 v a. The words ' higher A t m a ' are used here, because
one of the last defects and difficulties of the current
A - d v a i t a - Vedanta turns exactly, as it does in Fichte,
on the confusion (of the distinction without a difference)
between"? ratyag-atmS and Param-atma, the abs-
tract universal Ego and the true Absolute ego. Again,
Fichte's view is thus stated by Schwegler : " The business
of the theoretical part was to conciliate Ego and Non-Ego.
To this end, middle term after middle term was inter*
calated without success. Then came reason with the ab-
solute decision ' Inasmuch as the Non-Ego is incapable
of union with the Ego, Non-Ego there shall be none.' "
This is to all appearance exactly the Vedanta method, 2
whereby predicate after predicate is superimposed upon
the Supreme, and then refuted, negated and struck
away, as inappropriate, till the naked Ego remains
as the Unlimited which is the Negation of all that is
1 The opening lines of his commentary, the Sharlraka-Bhashya,.
on the Brahma-sutras .
9 And the method of the world-process. The spirit is ions, electrons,
atoms? No. It is gases, metals, minerals? No. Vegetables? No. Ani-
mals? No. Humans? No. Upa-<J6vas, de" vas, Vislvva-sr. jas?
No. And so on.
PEACE, CH. Vl] WORLD AS DREAM OF BRAHMAN 85
Not-Unlimited, and the searcher exclaims : " I am (is)
Brahman,' 1 ' and " the Many is not at all," * as the two
most famous V6da-texts, great sentences (in the Samskrt
phrase, maha-vakyas) or logia, the foundation of the
A-dvaita-V6danta, describe it. The opposition be-
tween the specification-less Brahman or At ma or
Ego, on the one hand, and the Non-Ego, on the
other, is stated by the Vedanta thus: (The At ma is)
That of which a kasha (ether), air, fire, water, and
earth, are the v i - v a r t a - s, opposites, perversions. 3
The relation between them is indicated in a manner
which comes home to the reader more closely than
Fichte's : " Brahman dreams all this universe, and its
waking is the reduction of it all to illusion." 4
Thus we see that some of the most important con-
clusions of the current A-dvait a- Vedanta have been
independently reached by this truly great German thinker.
And in seeing this, we have ourselves taken a step further
than we had done, when we left the Vishrshta-advaita
system as the second result of the last endeavour to solve
the supreme question of questions. We have seen that
the current A-d v a i t a - V&Janta is an advance upon
theVishishtadvaita. We have also seen that Fichte
and Hegel are supplementary to each other. For, while
Fichte's dialectic is the more internal, starting with
1 Brhad-Aranyaka , I, iv, 10.
9 Ibid. t IV, iv, 19.
* B bam aft, p. l.
4 Madhusudana Sarasvati's Sankshe1>a-Sharlraka-Tlk& t iii, shloka
240.
86 ANOTHER HITCH fSGIENCE OF
the Ego, and therefore the truer and less artificial, it
follows out the world-process up to the end of two stages
only, as it were, those of origination and preservation,
i.e., the present existing order of things, a commingling
of the Ego and the Non-Ego ; whereas Hegel's dialectic
though external, starting with Being (returning how-
ever to thought and Self afterwards), and therefore the
more artificial completes, in a way, the circuit of the
world-process to the last stage, that of destruction, dissolu-
tion, or return to the original condition. (The words ' in
a way ' have been used for want of the certainty that the
full significance of this cyclic law and triple succession of
origin, preservation, and dissolution of the kosmic systems
which make up the world-process, and which law is
reiterated over and over again in all Samskrt literature,
was present to the minds of Fichte and flegel.) We feel
now that Hegel, Fichte, and current A-dvaita-V6danta
have come close to the very heart of the secret ; we
feel that it cannot now be very far off; we are face
to face with the lock that closes the whole treasure-
house of explanations of all possible mysteries and secrets
and confusions ; we also hold in our hands the key which
we feel is the only key to the lock ; and not only do we
hold the key, but in our struggles with the key and the
lock we have, in the good company of the Indian
v6<j5ntls and the German idealists, broken through
panes of the door leaves and almost moved the door away
from its hinges, and obtained many a glimpse and even
plain view of many of those treasures and secrets. Yet
PEACE, CH. Vl] WHY MAYA ? WHY DREAM ? 87
the key will not quite turn in the lock. Some rust-stain
somewhere, some defect of construction, prevents this.
The defect, some features of which have been already
pointed out in treating of Hegel, is that we cannot deny
altogether this Non-Ego. We cannot quite convince
ourselves that it is 'pure* Non-being, atyanta-asat.
It seems both existent and non-existent, sad-asat.
Whence this appearance of existence in it ? The last
unexplained crux of the current A-dvaita-V6(Jmta
is the connection between Brahman, the Absolute,
and Maya, the Illusion of the World-Process. As
with Fichte's Non-Ego, so with the v6dantTs Maya,
there remains behind an appearance of artificiality, of a
deus ex machina, a lack of organic connection and
spontaneity, in the working of the world-process into and
out of the Ego, in the arrangement between Maya, on
the one hand, and Brahman, on the other. Why should
Brahman dream ? A hundred different ways of enunciation
and illustration are tried by the ordinary v64anti.
None is satisfactory. And therefore the current A-dvai{a
does not reach to the final stage of a true A-cJvaita .
When pressed, it, like Fichte, falls back upon the position
that Maya (Non-Ego, with Fichte) is wholly Non-being,
instead of both existent and non-existent, and this we
cannot quite bring home to ourselves. Besides this
difficulty, there is the process of change : the * I ' opposes
to itself the * Not-I ', and reverts again to an original
condition. Why ? Our Absolute must be above change*
Again, there seems to be an artificiality and arbitrariness
88 ETERNITY VS. TIME [SCIENCE OF
about the ' Not- 1 ' in another way. Why any one parti-
cular ' Not-I ' ? Fichte's deduction of the world-process
is effected in a syllogism of three steps, three propositions,
and even then it does not quite complete the process, but
leaves it half-finished. It ought to be complete in one
proposition, one single act of consciousness; otherwise
the difficulty of change in the Absolute remains unsolved.
There are expressions and indications that to the
mind of Fichte and other German thinkers, as to the
mind of the vedantl, there is present the distinction or
rather opposition between Eternity, succession-less Time-
lessness, kala-atlta-ta,, transcendence of time, on the
one hand, and successive time, kala, even though endless,
on the other. In this opposition lies the clue to the whole
of the'secret ; but it does not seem to have been utilised.
It is not properly utilised in the extant books on
A-<Jvaita-V6cUinta, although the fact that Brahman is
beyond space and time, is reiterated incessantly. Nor does
it seem to have been put to effective use by Fichte or any
other Western thinker, though it has been recognised by
even such a non-metaphysical but extremely acute
reasoner as J. S. Mill \ as the distinction between the
true and the false Infinite. One hesitates to say
positively that Fichte has left this last work unperform-
ed ; but from the accounts and translations of his writings
available in English, this seems to be the case. Yet the
secret is there, all the time, among the ideas expressed in
his writings, as much as in the better works of current
1 In his Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.
PEACE, CH. Vl] DEAD CHANGELESSNESS ? 89
A-<Jvaita-V6danta. Just the one rust-stain has to be
removed frprn the key, then it will turn, and will finally
unclose the lock, and lay open before us what we want'.
We want, as said before, That Which combines
within itself Change as well as Changelessness, and will
also be our own inmost Self. An infinity of change,
even though it be a change of progress a progress
that has no self-contained and consistent meaning ;
that is without a definite final goal towards which it
is a progress ; an increasing progress which, there is
reason to believe, may also be alternating with an ever-
increasing regress; a progress in a convolved spiral, which,
if it turns upwards to ever greater glories of higher and
subtler life, may also, by necessary correspondence, in
accordance with the law of balance, compensation, action-
reaction, thesis-antithesis, pass downwards too, through
ver-increasing miseries of lower and grosser densities of
matter such ceaseless, aimless, dual process, swing to-
and-fro, or progress even, means not satisfaction, brings
not happiness, but rather a desolate weariness. Fichte has
said (to quote again the words of Schwegler) : " It is our
duty at once, and an impossibility to reach the infinite ;
nevertheless, just this striving, united to this impossibility,
is the stamp of our eternity." ! Schelling has said the same
thing. 8 To the principle of this metaphysical * deduction,'
corresponds the actual fact, ascertained by Yoga and occult
science, and stated in the Puranas and other theosophical
1 Schwegler's History of Philosophy, p. 270,
1 J. H. Stirling, What is Thought ?, pp. 397-398.
-90 SISYPHUS & TANTALUS [SCIENCE OF
and Yoga-V6danta literature, that there is endless evolu-
tion of j I v a - s, by birth after birth, in body after body
and world after world. But this fact is not the whole truth ;
it does not stand by itself. If it did, then such a mere in-
finity of change, without a constant and permanent basis
of changelessness and peace, would only add the horrors
of Sisyphus to the agonies of Tantalus. No soul, however
patiently it now accepts as many do the doctrine of an
endless progress, will long feel peace in it by itself. The
longing, yearning, resistless and quenchless craving for
Changelessness and Peace and Rest, for something final,
will come upon it sooner or later.
Besides this emotional difficulty, this surfeit with
unrest, which is now upon us, there is the intellectual
difficulty, the impossibility of understanding the very
fact of change. The instinct of the intellect cries out, as
the very first words of all logic, as the primary laws of
all thought, that A is A, that it is not not-A, that
Being is Being only, and never Nothing. " The non-
existent cannot be, and the existent cannot not-be." l
Yet every mortal moment of our lives, all around and
above and below us, these much-vaunted laws of logic
are being violated incessantly. 1 Every infinitesimal instant,
1 Gifft, ii, 16 ; otherwise, / might become non-est also ! The intellec-
tual instinct too is emotional rebellion against that possibility.
* And in these textbooks of deductive logic themselves, most bare-
facedly ! Solemnly declaring that A is A only and B is B only, they at
once also say, A is B, B is C, therefore A is C ! If A is A, B is B, and C
is C, only, how can A ever be B, or B be C, or C be A ? If A really is
B. i.e., identical with B, then why two names for the same thing ? Call
it either A, or B. Samskrt Nyaya does not misapply these laws of
Universal Thought, as if "they were laws of individual and concrete
t hinking, for which the distinction between thing and thought, idea and
PEACE, CH. Vl] DEDUCTION AFTER INDUCTION 91
something, some existent thing, is becoming on-
existent, and some non-existent thing is coming into being,
is becoming existent. We may say that it is only the
form that behaves like this. But what is the good of
saying so ? All that the world really means to us sounds-
and sights, tastes, touches, and scents all is included in
the ' form ' that changes. Even weight, it is being
attempted to prove by mathematical computations,
will 'change, with change of position, from planet to
planet. 1 And, finally, those mathematical laws them-
selves, on which such computations are based, can no-
longer boast permanence ; they, too, are being changed
by mathematicians, and it is endeavoured to be shown-
that parallel lines can meet and two things occupy the
same space ; though, on these points, it seems likely that
exuberance of originality has led to exaggerations, and
that the ' old order ' will be restored. We have an-
indestructible faith that matter is indestructible ; this
faith is not due to any limited facts we know, for
limited data can never justify limitless inductions * and
inferences ; it is only the unavoidable assignment by us,
reality, holds good. It does not say A is B, and B is C, therefore A is
C, but that A has C, because C goes with B, and A has B. It does not
artificially separate out an utterly sterile deductive or formal logic from
the wholly useful inductive or real logic, but combines both, as is inevit-
able and natural. The true and full significance of these laws of thought
appears only in metaphysic, as laws of Being, i.e., Universal Thought,
as will appear later on.
1 See Scripture, The New Psychology ; but Ostwald in his Hand"
book of Chemistry seems to think otherwise.
2 The real secret of the unlimitedness of inductions and generalisa
tions, as made, is that every single instance, every one, has in it the
principle of infinity. Many cases, a number of cases, are not necessary to
justify an induction. One case, but it must be a clear and unmistakeable
1 92 COMMON LOGIC VS. METAPHYSIC [SC. OF
by the ' I,' of a conjugal share in our own indefeasible
eternity, to our undivorceable partner in life, the * Not-I,'
matter. Such being the case, it does not help us in any
way to say that only the form changes. The form is
practically everything ; and even if it were not so, even
tthen it is something, it is an existent something at one
moment. And what is existent once, should be existent
ever. How, why, does it pass into non-existence ? We
*do not understand change. We do not understand the
world-process. If you would have us understand it, you
'must show that this world-process is not a process at all,
>but a rock-like fixity ; that procession is illusion, and fixity
the truth. Then only shall we be able to bring it into
.accord with the primary laws of thought. Such is the
'difficulty of the exaggerated, yet also legitimate, demand
of the reason, on the one hand.
On the other hand stands the difficulty of what may
<be called the demand of the senses. A doctrine of mere
*changelessness is incomplete ; a mere assertion of it
perfectly unconvincing. It explains nothing and is not a
<case. is enough. Because in one, therefore in all ones which are the
. same ; because once, therefore always, in the same conditions.
One school of Nyaya puts the ' matter in a simple way ; we have
pratyaksha, direct perception , of a v y a k t i , a particular, and of its
j a ti, species or genus, both, together, simultaneously; because parti-
t:ular-and-general are inseparably bound together by samavaya, co-in-
herence, mutual 'together-ness'. No 'induction* by elaborate obser-
vation and comparison of many instances would be necessary, and
'generalisation ' could be arrived at straight off, from the very first obser-
vation, if it be sufficiently precise, accurate, unmixed ; but, in practice*
observation and comparison of many instances are needed, to eliminate
irrelevant circumstances. In short, particular-perception and the
><connected general-perception (Kantian ' matter ' and ' form ') arise
together in the observer's consciousness.
PEACE, CH. Vl] " I AM THAT I AM " 9$
fact. It is, as just said, denied by every wink of our
eyes, by evsry breath of our lungs, by every beat of our
hearts. We want that which will combine and harmonise
both change and changelessness. We want to reduce
each into terms of the other.
Many have been the efforts to shut up the world-
process into something which can be held in a single
hand ; which shall be but one single act of consciousness.
Kant says, in his Kritik of Practical Reason, " to deduce
all from a single principle, is the inevitable demand of
human reason; we can find full satisfaction only in a
complete systematic Unity of all the possessions of our
reason " ; but he himself failed badly to satisfy that de-
mand. Fichte could not do it in less than three successive,
unsimultaneotis, and therefore change- involving steps, and
then too but incompletely. The great mystic school of
Rosicrucians has endeavoured to do so in one thought
and Bible-text : " I am that I am " ; but this propounds
mere changelessness, and makes no provision for change.
The Vda-texts belonging to the penultimate stage have
exclaimed separately, as said before : "(The) I am (is) Brah-
man," and then : " The Many is not at all " ; but these
too are insufficient for our purpose ; they too establish
changelessness alone and explain not change ; while others-
embody change only and not changelessness, as thus : "May
I who am One become Many ; may I be born forth and
multiply," 1 " It created that, and entered into that also." 2
1 Chh&ndogya, VI, ii, 3, and fait\iriya % II, vi, 1.
% II, vi, 1.
94 SOMETHING MORE NEEDED [SCIENCE OF
we seek shall be obtained by compressing the
three steps of Fichte into one ; 6y combining the first
two separate scripture-utterances into a unity a small
change perhaps, at first sight, but almost as radical and
important in result as an alteration of the mere order of
letters composing a word, an alteration which makes a
completely new word with an entirely new meaning.
NOTE I. It may be mentioned here that the western
philosophers especially selected in the text to serve as land-
marks on the *p a t:h of enquiry, have been so selected because
their special way of thought, arising out of modern con-
ditions, seemed most suited to the modern student and best
fitted for the* purpose in hand. Otherwise, indeed, the same
subjects of enquiry have been and are being investigated by
hundreds of the finest intellects of the human race, from the
most ancient times up to the present day ; and different aspects
of the same truths -and propositions and solutions maybe
found in the works of the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato,
Aristotle, and the Neo-Platonists especially, of Descartes,
Spinoza, Leibnitz, of the mystics, Scheffler, Eckhart, Albrecht,
and Bcehme, of Bruno and Bacon, and, again, Schopenhauer
and Spencer, and many others. Each philosopher worthy of
the name, and to whom the name has been given by public
recognition, has undoubtedly left the world's stock of philo-
sophical knowledge richer, by at least some definite piece of
work, a fuller and deeper view of some law, or a new appli-
cation and use of it, a new aspect of a question, or fact, or
law, or a fresh presentation, in a new re-arrangement, of the
same time-old world-facts, as of the same glass-pieces of a
kaleidoscope re-arranged by every new turn. Indeed, as may
appear later on, the most erroneous -seeming opinion ever held
by any thinker will be seen, from an all-embracing standpoint,
and in a certain sense, to be a not inaccurate description of
one aspect of a world -fact, one greater or lesser portion of the
truth. But some of the latest German thinkers seem to have
succeeded better than any of their precursors in Europe in the
attempt to systematise and unify. And even amongst these,
PEACE, CH. Vl] PANTHEON OF PHILOSOPHERS 95
from such accounts and translations of his writings into
English as are available, Fichte appears to be an almost
indispensable help to the modern students of true Vedanta
and the higher metaphysic the metaphysic which would en-
close so-called occult and superphysical science within its
principles, as well as physical science ; which claims to be a
science because it offers to be tested in the same way as
every particular science is tested, viz., by endeavouring to
show that its hypotheses agree with present facts, and also
enable prediction to be made correctly, of results in the
future ; which, indeed, claims to be the very science of
sciences by providing a great system, a great hypothesis,
which, while special sciences systematise and unify limited
groups of facts, would deal with and synthesise the root-
concepts of all these special sciences, and so co-ordinate all
sciences, would systematise and unify all possible world-facts,
past, present, and to come.
It may be objected that this claim is rather large, seeing
that many thinkers have put forward many systems of meta-
physic ; and all differ from each other more' or less ; so that
metaphysic has been even described as the most contentious of
sciences. The reply is that there is, at bottom, as substantial
an agreement, though much less obvious, between these
different systems as between different textbooks of, say, arith-
metic or geometry, which differ in language, phrasing, order
of presentation, of the subject-matter, method of calculation
or proof, examples, corollaries, etc. A similar substantial agree-
ment there must be, at bottom, ultimately, between all the
changing expositions of all the physical sciences too ; for
each endeavours to expound, obviously, one aspect of Nature,
all aspects of which make up a mutually-agreeing consistent
whole ; and scientists are sensing, and trying to grasp and
express, that underlying agreement and unity. In countries
where metaphysic is almost as much in vogue as arithmetic,
e.g., India, this substantial agreement between philosophies
is no longer un-obvious either ; thus the learned in India are
all, on the whole, tacitly agreed that the Vedanta is the final
philosophy, that the five or more other schools represent but
stages or aspects, and that changing times require and bring
forth only fresh presentations, in more or less suitably modified
96 EACH DEPICTS ONE ASPECT OF THE TRUE [SC. OF
forms, of the same ' final truth '. When and where metaphysic
comes to be really as much in vogue as mathematics, then
and there its numeration and notation, its four fundamental
rules and Rule of Three, its definitions, postulates, and axioms,
its points, lines, surfaces, and solids, its essential concepts
of force, fulcrum, and lever, its compositions, resolutions,
and parallelograms of forces, its equations, permutations,
combinations, and probabilities all these will be recognis-
ed and agreed upon even more widely and deeply ; for
what is or can be nearer than the Self, the Not-Self, and the
Relation between them ? And then there will be, even obvi-
ously, as little difference between books on metaphysic, as
between those on mathematics. What the traditional feeling
and conviction on this point is in India, may be inferred from
the fact that while the V edas and, of course, the Upani-
shats which are the Vedanta, the * final ' and crowning part
of them are insistently declared to be svatah-pramapa,
self-evident (see footnote at p. 40, supra), the technical
SamskrJ name for the geometrical axioms is svayam-
siddha, ' self-proven/ the same thought, and practically the
same word.
Sometimes it is said that philosophy is a matter of ' per-
sonal equation '. Alexander Herzberg has written an in-
forming and entertaining book, The Psychology of Philo-
sophers, in which he has tried to connect the views, of some
thirty of the most famous western thinkers, with their per-
sonal characters, temperaments, physical health and features,
life-experiences, and circumstances. There is an element of
truth, no doubt, in this ; it is even proverbial that views
change with the situation, the point of view. But that element
of truth must not be pressed too far. The proverb suggests
its own supplement. Circumambulate the problem concerned ;
view it from all standpoints ; and you will see the way to
agreement. Differences are mostly of emphasis, on this or that
other aspect ; and of taste. Even in mathematics, one person
studies and writes on arithmetic ; another, geometry : another,
algebra, or trigonometry, or mensuration, conic sections,
calculus, etc. But there is no contradiction between them.
So too, there would not be any, there is no, contradiction
between philosophers and philosophies, if the latter only
P., CH. VI] EASTERN AND WESTERN THOUGHT 97
restrained egoism properly, and were more desirous to under-
stand than eager to differ and claim originality. The present
writer has endeavoured to show the Essential Unity of All
Religions, in a compilation hearing that name, by parallel
texts from the scriptures of eleven ; and philosophies are at
least one aspect of religions, as religions are of philosophies.
NOTE II. For readers interested in the linking up of
eastern and western thought, some further observations are
subjoined. They may perhaps be usefully read once again,
after reading the next chapter. The two will cast light on
each other.
Schwegler, in History of Philosophy, articles on Fichte,
Schelling, Hegel; J. H. Stirling^ in The Secret of Hegel;
Wallace, in The Logic of Hegel, ' Prolegomena ' ; Caird, in
Hegel all speak unfavourably of certain traits and acts of
Hegel, his grudging and very insufficient acknowledgment of
his great debt to Fichte, his jealousy of Schelling and making
use of him as a stepping-stone in various ways, his flattery of
his Government and exaltation of the Monarchical State. He
had his great good points also. All human beings including
1 philosophers ' (!), of East and West, ancient as well as
modern are ' bundles of contradictions ', of ' opposites ', as
is all Nature. A soul wearing a body, is necessarily such a
compound ; it is matter for deep thanksgiving, if the factor of
soul-altruism happens to predominate over that of body-egoism.
Hegel says (Wallace, op. cit., pp. 101-102): " It was
only formally that the Kantian system established the princi-
ple that thought acted spontaneously in forming its constitu-
tion. Into the details of the manner and the extent of this
self-determination of thought, Kant never went. It was
Fichte who first noticed the omission, called attention to the
want of a deduction of the categories, and endeavoured to
supply something of the kind. With Fichte, the Ego is the
starting point in the philosophical development, and the out-
come of its action is supposed to be visible in the categories ".
Broadly, ' categories ', here, may be understood to corres-
pond with themaha-vakyas, 4 great logia ', Primal Laws
6f Nature, God's Nature, Self's Nature, on which Laws
98 FURTHER COMPARISONS (SCIENCE OF
the World- Process is framed, by which it is shaped, gov-
erned, carried on ; this sense is much broader than that of the
word as used by Kant and also Hegel. In the Vaisheshika
system, as we have seen (f.n. to pp. 60-61 supra)> the * cate-
gories f are implicitly inherent in God's Nature. Fichte and
Schelling have their own sets of categories, though perhaps
less full, and less systematically concatenated, than those of
Hegel.
Hegel goes on to criticise Fichte : " But in Fichte, the
Ego is not really presented as a free, spontaneous energy ; it
is supposed to receive its first impulse from without . . .
The nature of the impulse remains a stranger beyond
our pale ".
Hegel's objections are false, and apply to his own
work forcibly ; not tp Fichte's. When Hegel begins with
the sensationalist paradox, that Being is Nothing, and
Nothing is Being, and Becoming is the passing of each
into the other, does he present the three as three free
and spontaneous energies, and endow any or all of them
with impulses from within, impulses which are not strangers
beyond our pale, but familiars within our home ? He tries to
see a non-existent mote in Fichte's eyes, and fails to see the
beam in his own ! Fichte says clearly that the Ego itself
positively posits, contra-poses, Non-Ego, over against it-
Self, in order to realise it-Self. The Ego is obviously,
as comes home to every one us in our feeling of free-will,
a free and spontaneous energy, and the impulse is it own.
The following extracts from Schwegler (op. cit., * Fichte ') will
illustrate : " The Ego is manifest in consciousness ; but the
thing-in-itself is a- mere fiction . . . (Fichte) would make the
Ego the (first) principle, and from the Ego would derive all the
rest . . . We are to understand by this Ego, not the parti-
cular individual, but the universal Ego . . . Egoityand indi-
viduality, the pure (abstract) and the empirical ego, are
entirely different ideas. . . . Fichte is the first to deduce
all fundamental notions from a single point, and to
bring them into connection, instead of taking them only
empirically, like Kant, and setting them down in mere
juxtaposition. . . . EgoEgo, the Ego is, / am. . . .
P., CH. Vl] HEGEL, FICHTE, AND VEDANTA 99
Before anything can be given in the Ego, the Ego itself
must be given. . . . This is pure, inherent, independent
activity. . . . / am is the expression of the only possible
original act. . . . The Ego is the prius of all judgment, and
is the foundation of the nexus (relation) of subject and predi-
cate . . . We obtain from it, the category of reality. All
categories are deduced from the Ego as absolute subject. . . .
The second fundamental principle is, ... Ego is not=non-
Ego. . . . Whatever belongs to the Ego, the counterpart of
that must, by virtue of simple contraposition, belong to the
non-Ego. The category (idea, general notion, law, of) deter-
mination or limitation follows ; thence follow . . . divisibility,
substantiality, causality, cause-and-effect, reciprocal relation
(etc.) . . . The Ego itself is absolutely self-determination. . . .
Originally, there is only a single substance, the Ego; it
alone is the absolute Infinite. . . . But the Ego sup-
poses a Non-Ego. . . ." And so on. That there are some
minute, subtle, even important, differences between Fichte's
thinking and Vedanta, may be granted. The Vedanta
way is preferred in the present work, compiled in view
of the Indian reader's requirements as well as those of the
western reader, who may be interested in Indian thought.
The seeker, goaded by inner questionings, must, of course,
decide for himself, which satisfies him most. But Hegel's
fault-finding with Fichte does not seem justified in any case.
He says (op. cit.) : " What Kant calls thing-tn-itself, Fichte
calls impulse from without . . . (i.e.) non-Ego in general.
The c I ' is thus looked at as standing in relation with
the * not- 1 ' through which its act of self-determination is
first awakened."
Hegel had access to the original German of Fichte, which
the present writer has not ; and Fichte may have employed
words equivalent, in English, to ' impulse from without '.
But, seeing how words are perpetually changing their mean-
ings in the hands of philosophers, and even the same philo-
sopher, (Hegel himself is an outstanding example of this
sin), the present writer would interpret Fichte as meaning
4 impulse from non-Ego, contraposited, ideated, as if without ,
by the Ego it-self ', and ' first awakened ' as * eternally
realised, once for all> as well as realised throughout all
100 SELF, THE CENTRAL FACT [SCIENCE OF
time in unending succession '. This interpretation is sup-
ported by Schwegler's whole account of Fichte ; and that
account seems to be fair and correct as against Hegel's
cavillings and carpings, which seem to be almost ' malice
prepense ' (!), in order to set off his own originality. To
prick the big bubble of Hegel's big claim, it is enough
to observe that Fichte begins with a Living One, and that
One, the Heart's Desire of the whole Universe of living
beings, the Self, ' for the sake of which is dear, whatever
else happens to be dear/ (as the Upanishat says); while
Hegel begins with three, and three life-less, soul -less, ghosts,
Being-Nothing-Becoming, outside of Me, there, in front of
Me. Even Kant, from whom, according to Stirling, Hegel's
industrious exponent, Hegel borrowed very much even Kant
craved for f and could not find, a Single Principle from which
all could be deduced ; but he did come to have an inkling that
the Self is that Single Principle, the * thing -in-itself ' behind
both Mind and Matter. Thus: "The 'I think' must be
capable of accompanying all my ideas ; otherwise, there
would be presented to my mind an idea of something which
could not be thought, and this means that the thought would
be impossible, . or, at least, that it would be nothing at all
for me ; . . . the proposition that all the various elements of
our empirical consciousness must be bound together in one
self -consciousness > is absolutely the first principle of all our
thinking" quoted from Kant, by Edward Caird, in The
Critical Philosophy of Kant, I, 353.
Why so much dissertation about the Self ? Because
It is the One Central Fact of Vedanja and of all Indian
thought, the one sure and certain Single Reality of the
Universe ; One, yet all^enveloping, all-regulating, all-deducing-
producing-inducing. Atma, as J?aram-Atma,JPraJ;yag-Atma,
Jiv-Ajma, Sutr-Atma, Bhut-Atma, Jagad-Atma, pervades
Samskrt literature. And Hegel and Stirling cannot avoid
sensing Its light, even through closed eyelids. Stirling (op.
cit.), pp. 28-29, earnestly exhorts, in the very spirit of the
Upanishats and the Yoga- Vasishtha, the would-be student of
Hegel to practise meditation on " Abstract or Pure Being,
Abstract or Pure Existentiality, the Hegelian Seyn . . . Let
there be no stone, no plant, no sea, no earth, no sun, no idea,
P., CH. Vl] STIRLING'S SELF-CONTRADICTIONS 101
no space, no time, no God let the universe disappear we
have not yet got rid of Is. Is will not, cannot, disappear."
But, please, let the Self, you, your-self, who are exhorting
others to meditate thus let your-Self disappear. Does 7s
remain after that ? If it does, how do you know that it does ? !
Stirling again says : " Ask yourself, What would there be, if
there were just nothing at all, and if there never had been
anything neither God, nor a world, nor an existence at all ?
Ask yourself this and listen ! Then look at the question itself,
and observe how it contains its own dialectic and contradic-
tion, in ^>r-supposing the Being it is actually supposing
not to be ! " But, please, add to the question ' Neither a Self,
your-Self ', and listen ! Who is left to listen ? ! The question
as worded by Stirling, when it says ' nor an existence at all ',
does not mean, ' not even your own existence ', but surrepti-
tiously implies that your own i.e., your-Selfs existence is left ;
for indeed it is impossible for any one to imagine his own
existence abolished, (see p. 22 supra). We do not know
if Stirling ever tried to perform that feat. His question pre-
supposes Being, truly ; but what Being, whose Being ?
Whatever Being he meant, that Being inevitably pre -supposes
Self, whose Being, or which as Being, is the only Being that
is absolutely, unshakeably, unabolishably sure and certain.
Stirling cannot help contradicting himself on this point.
At p. 24 of his book, he says : " Hegel as it were swoons him-
self back into infancy, trances himself through all childhood,
and awakes when the child awakes, that is, with reflection, but
retaining a consciousness of the process, which the child
does not. It is a realisation of the wish that we could know
the series of development in the mind of the child ". Inci-
dentally, this is one of the exercises suggested in Yoga ; and
a simpler form of it is do not get out of bed in the morning too
quickly, but practise awaking slowly, and intro-specting the
gradual stages from dim to clear consciousness ; for, speaking
very broadly, by the Law or Fact of Analogy, viz., that the
small is as the large, the microcosm as the macrocosm, a
complete day of an individual life is like the whole of that
life, and this latter again is like the whole of the life of a
whole Human race or nation, and that, again; like the
102 HIS ADMISSION OF THE SELF'S PRIMACY [SC. OF
Cosmos-Chaos, Evolution-Dissolution of a whole globe, or
a whole Solar System ; and so on.
Now, Stirling goes on to say that when the child awakes,
" conceivably there is a sense of being or the vague wide
idea, Being ; there is no I in it ; I is the product of reflexion."
This at p. 24. But at p. 67, he contradicts himself crassly :
" The notion then as being, as is, as the absolutely first
crude, dim, dull, opaque, chaotic consciousness, brute / am,
the first flutter of life, .\ . is only in it-self latent, undeve-
loped ; " and again, at p. 99, " that which lives, and all that
lives, is thought ; / find my 7 to be a constituent moment,**
(better say, locus, focus, centre, basis) " of that all of thought. 1 '
Here, Stirling, unwittingly, helplessly, admits the primacy of
the Self. At the end of his Annotations to Schwegler, he claims
for himself only the role of a " humble Christian philosopher ",
and on the last but one page (p. 750) of The Secret of Hegel,
he claims for Hegel that he " has no object but once again to
restore to us and in the new light of the new thought
Immortality and Free-Will, Christianity and God ". But
he forgets that in the Bible, " God said unto Moses, I AM
THAT I AM ; and he said, Thus shalt thou say to the
children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you " ; and
again, repeatedly, " 1 am the Alpha and the Omega, the first
and the last." The Rg-Veda, in the magnificent Nasa-
dlya hymn, says: " Neither non-Being was, nor Being.
Only the Self breathed, without air. It breathed Its own Self-
affirmation, Self -positing, Sva-dha. Death was not, nor
deathlessness, nor day, nor night, nor space, nor any orbs
therein. Deep darkness lay in the embrace of deep darkness.
Nothing-Else-than-It was, Tas mad-Any a t-Na pa ram
k i n c h i 4 as a. And in it moved Primal Desire, Kama, seed
of Universal Mind. Who knows It ? Perhaps It knows It-Self,
perhaps not ! " (For texts from other scriptures, of other
religions, to the same or similar effect, the reader may see the
present writer's The Essential Unity of All Religions, Index-
references, ' Self ', c God ', ' I ').
P., CH. Vl] HEGEL'S PERPETUAL USE OF 'SELF' 103
4 Other ', 64 times ; and the word * This ', as equivalent to
' Other ', also, a few times. On p. 255, ' Self ' occurs 29
times ; on p. 256, 18 times ; on p. 257, 20 times. Please note,
this is Hegel's own writing, only translated. The word ' Self *
occurs, in greater or less abundance, on many other pages,
generally in peculiar combinations with other words. An sick
(in, at, or by Self), fur sich (for, by, or with Self), An Hjidfur
sich (in and for Self) this triad is the very skeleton, the frame,
on which are moulded all the tissues and the flesh of Hegel's
system. Following compounds are found all over the place ;
it-self, for-self, m-and-for-self, self-diremption, self-union,
self-conservation, self-retention, self-reference, self-separation,
self -duplication, self-mediation, self -consciousness, being-iriit-
self, being-for-self, being-within-it-self, being-in-it-self-ness,
be-ent-in-it-self, self-identical-within-it-self, self-to-self-re-
ferent, in-it-self-ness ; and so on and so forth. Yet to give
precedence to Being-Nothing-Becoming over Self (and It's in-
cluded Not-Self i.e., This Other, and Not) this, to the Vedanja
view, is a very grave, very misleading, error ; though, of course,
every error has its use, if it act as incentive to further trial,
until finding. 'Self, 'Other' (Skt. ijara, Gr. heteron)
' This ' (Skt. e t a t , i d a m ) these words are in the very
spirit of Vedanta, which uses equivalents pointedly ; but
Hegel fails to describe the Relation between the Three,
satisfactorily, or even at all. Fichte, as said, makes a much
nearer approach, without quite grasping, it seems.
Stirling (in whose own expositions of Hegel, the word
' self,' or its equivalent ' ego ' or ' sich ' occurs, e.g., 27 times
on p. 51, and 29 times on pp. 121-122, to take instances at
random) says at p. 53 : " Hegel's secret is very much the
translating of the concrete individual into the abstract
general or universal. He is always intelligible when we keep
before us the particular individual he is engaged translating ;
but let us lose the object, the translation becomes hopeless."
But why write thus abstractly ? Indian seers and sages
enjoin the study of Veda- Vedanta and Itihasa-Purana,
Philosophy and History, Abstract and Concrete, side by side,
in the light of each other. So only are both lighted up.
To teach a secret code without explaining the meaning
simultaneously; a shorthand system without the longhand
104 HEGEL'S IGNORANT CONCEIT RE Gtta [sc. OF
equivalents ; geometry without the figures : is futile. When
Hegel ' descends ' into concrete illustrations, rarely, he is not
only intelligible but interesting and informing. But he, " in
genera], vouchsafes abandantly, dry, abstract allusion, but
never one word of plain, straightforward, concrete expla-
nation. Information in Hegel is, for the most part, but
a disdainful abstruse riling of us ' : (Stirling op. cit. p. 355).
There are instances of such deliberate mystification, abstruse
abstractness, code-language, * riddling rhymes ' and even
' scornful riling,' in Samskrt literature too, as, f.i., that of the
mysterious 8800 verses ' of Maha-bharata, by tradition, of
* Raikva of the car ' and Yajna-valkya in the Upanishats,
of Dharma-kirti (Buddhist author), of Shri Harsha (poet and
a-4vaijl casuist-sophist). But these are not regarded as
models ; and the 8800 so-thought ' mysterious ' verses of Veda-
Vyasa are explained by some scholar's, very simply, as being
only the first draft, which Vyasa himself, later, expanded
to 24,000, and his disciples and grand-disciples, subsequently,
to a hundred thousand verses, by successive additions, some-
what as the successive editions of an encyclopedia * grow
from more to more '. Mystery-mongering is a very old
trade ; it attracts many customers, though it repels others.
Particularly surprising in* a person of Hegel's great repu-
tation is his shallow, supercilious, self-conceited criticism of
the V6$anta of Bhagavad-Gita, and of Sufism ; (pp. 188-192,
Wallace's 'translation of Hegel's Philosophy of Mind). It
is obvious to anyone who has studied Gtfa and the better
known Sufi writings with any care, that that criticism is based,
not on knowledge, but on ignorance. He says, " They are
systems which apprehend' the Absolute only as substance . . .
The fault of all these modes of thought is that they stop short
of defining " (i.e., they do not define) " substance as subject
and as mind ". To us, in view of what has been said above,
regarding Hegel's treatment of Being and Self, this criticism
is like ' the thief shouting Stop thief ' ; is imputing to an-
other the fault which is his own. No system of thought, no
philosophy, has so expressly and emphatically declared the
only real substance to be the Supreme Self and Subject, as
the Vedanta. The case of ' mind ' is different ; it is the Self's
Nature ; about which, later on. .
P., CH. Vl] RESIDUAL VALUE OF HEGEL 105
The substantial value of Hegel seems to be what the
* popular ' or * general ' mind has decided ; and the * popular '
mind (because it reflects the element of Truth in the Univer-
sal Mind, at least as often as that of its Opposite, Untruth or
Falsehood or Error, which also is present in the Universal
Mind, by inevitable Duality-wi thin- Unity), has concluded
that the things of permanent use in Hegel are, a fuller working
out of the method of thesis-antithesis-synthesis which he
borrowed from Fichte ; that the process of the world means
that the Spirit goes out into Nature, as into something other
than itself, and then returns to itself with a fuller content of
knowledge, and fuller self-consciousness, as in a * perfected
man ' ; and that every individual, as much as the universe,
is a whole, a whole of wholes, a circle of circles. But all
this has been said by many others also, in other and some-
times better words, and needs completion by Vedanta.
Hegel says (Wallace, The Logic of Hegel, 1st edn.,
p. 62) : " When the notion of God is apprehended only as that
of abstract or most positive being [ most real being* in the
new edn., of 1892], God is, as it were, relegated to another
world beyond ; and to speak of a knowledge of him would be
meaningless. Where there is no distinction of elements
[' no definite quality ', in the new edn.] knowledge is impos-
sible. Mere light is mere darkness ". This is not unintelli-
gible, though * / am ' is knowledge of a sort, and without
any definite quality. And the last two sentences show that
the sensationally and paradoxically worded proposition, ' Pure
Being is pure Nothing ', is capable of being understood into
* pure ' common sense ; as thus, when we are day-dreaming, or
twiddling our thumbs, and a person asks * What are you
doing ? ', and we answer ' Oh nothing ', we mean ' Nothing
particular, nothing that matters, nothing worth while noting
or remembering '. So, Hegel's ' Beginning * means the
passing of that factor of Being which belongs to Something, of
some particular Being, into Nothing ; and vice versa ; other-
wise, abstract Being and abstract Nothing would be " relegated
to another world beyond, 1 like " abstract God ", and " to
speak of a knowledge of them would be meaningless ". And
it is, necessarily, with some such particular specificate
determinate Beginning, with some object that has ' begun ',
106 CRITERION OF COMPLETE METAPHYSIC [SC. OK
(and is also ending, is passing from birth to death and death
to birth, in the metabolism of a perpetual round of anabolism-
katabolism, necro-biosis, incessant integration-disintegration,
existence-non-existence), that ordinary thinking (Hegelian
Perception-Conception-Understanding) as well as philosophi-
cal thinking (those three plus Hegelian Reason) also begin.
This thinking, of course, pre-supposes the consciousness of
the * thinker- 1 * ; which consciousness is vague in ordinary
thinking, and clear in philosophical ; and becomes full
(All-) Self-Consciousness, as the very climax of Reason (or
' Speculation \ in Hegelian terminology).
-As Hegel himself says (ibid.) : " God must be simply and
solely the ground of every thing, and in so far, not dependent
on anything. . . . The demonstration of reason no doubt
starts from some thing which is not God. But, as it advances,
it does not leave the starting-point a mere unexplained
fact, which is'what it was. On the contrary, it exhibits
that point as derivative, and called into being, and then, God
is seen to be primary and self -(Self-) subsisting, with the
means of derivation wrapped up and absorbed in himself
(Self) . . . The original antecedent is reduced to a con-
sequence". By such interpretation, and by bearing in mind
the implicit perpetual assumption of Self by Hegel, (the
failure to announce which, clearly, at the very beginning, can
only be counted as a disastrous omission), removes much
obscurity. It will be noticed by the careful reader, however,
that Hegel is only quietly copying Fichte here, and very
uncouthly too, by substituting the much less intelligible third -
person term ' God ' (somewhere in " another world beyond "),
for Fichte's sun-clear first-person term * I ', ever-near, ever-
dear, here, there, everywhere. This is a theme capable of
much expansion, requiring a sentence or more for every
sentence of Hegel ; and cannot be pursued here any
further.
Hegel's own language, summarised by Schwegler, and
quoted above, (pp. 74-75, supra) is " The absolute . . . returns
out of self-externalisation, self-alienation, back into its own
self, resolves the heterisation of nature, and becomes, at last,
P., CH. VI] HEGEL'S ADMISSION 107
actual self-cognisant spirit, 1 ' This seems to be the "the
notion," " the notion of the notion," " the absolute," " the
Idea ", " the Reciprocity which is the notion " which Stirling
repeats ad nauseam , without once ' defining ' it ' definitively ',
to the accompaniment of much dramatic exuberance, efferve-
scence, exclamation, exultation, and attempt at exposition.
Elsewhere, Hegel says, (Wallace, op. cit, p. 289) : *' As
Fichte was one of the earliest among modern philosophers
to remark, the theory which regards the Absolute or God as
the Object and nothing more, expresses the point of view
taken by superstition and slavish fear. . . , The salvation
and the happiness of men are effected by bringing them to
feel themselves at one with God . , . God in the Chris-
tian religion is also known as Love. In his Sow, who is
one with him, he has revealed himself to men as a
man amongst men, and thereby redeemed them. This
religious dogma is only another way of saying that the
antithesis of subjective and objective, has been already over-
come, and that on us lies the obligation of participating
in this redemption, by laying aside our immediate subjectivity,
putting off the old Adam, and learning to know God as our
true and essential Self. And as it is the aim of religion and
religious worship to win victory over this antithesis of sub-
jectivity and objectivity, so science and philosophy too have
no other task than to overcome this antithesis by the medium
of thought. The aim of knowledge is to ... trace the
objective world back to the notion, back to our innermost
Self."
Now, all this is good sound Vedanta, Gnostic Mysticism,
Sufism, and the right way to interpret religious dogmas and
myths. And many passages in Hegel, and many more in Fichte,
read almost like translations from the old Indian books;
especially does page after page of Fichte's " The Vocation of
Man ", breathe the very spirit of Gita, Upanishats, Yoga-
Vasishtha. But something more is wanted than German
or other Western thinkers have said. So we will take leave
of them now, and pass to the original ancient Vedanta,
where the keystone, the crown of them all, is to be found. '
108 THE FINAL ANSWER [SCIENCE OF
CHAPTER VII
THE LAST ANSWER
YAMA, Lord of Death, Ruler of the next Vorld into which
souls are ' born ' after ' dying ' out of this ; than whom,
as Nachiketa said, there could be no better giver of
assurance against mortality, no truer teacher of the truth
of life and death ; gives this last answer : " That which
all the scriptures ponder and repeat ; that which all the
shining, glowing, burning, lights (ascetic holy souls)
declare ; that for which the pure ones follow Brahma-
charya, life of virtue, study, sacri-fice to Brahman ; that
do I declare to thee in brief it is AUM." 1
What is the meaning of this mysterious statement,
repeated over and over again in a hundred ways, in all
Samskrt literature, sacred and secular ? Thus :
The Prashna-Upanishat says: "This, O Satya-
kama, desirer of truth, is the higher and the lower
1 Katha-Upanishat, I, ii, 15. Besides the special significance of
AUM, (pronounced as OM) expounded here, one of its ordinary meanings.
as of its Arabic and English transformations, AMIN and AMEN, res-
pectively. is 'yes, 1 'be it so* . In G*#J, the first line of the verse is
replaced by,
' th,e Imperishable One Whom the knowers of the V&Ja declare, Whom
the passionless sinless self -controllers merge themselves' into.'
PEACE, CH. VII] ALL-INCLUDING AUM 109
Brahman this that is known as the AUM. Therefore,
strong-based in this as his home and central refuge, the
knower may reach out to anything that he deems fit
to follow after, and he shall surely obtain it." '
The Chhandogya says : " The AUM is all this ; the
AUM is all this." *
The Taittinya says : " AUM is Brahma(n) ; AUM is
all this." 3
The Mcindukya says : " This, the imperishable AUM,
is all this ; the unfolding thereof is the past, the present,
and the future; all is AUM." 4
The Tara-sara repeats these words of the Mandukya,
and says again : " The AUM this is the imperishable,
the supreme, Brahma(n) ; it alone should be worshipped." 5
Patanjali says : " The declarer of It is the Praoava ;
jap a-litany of it is (not mere mechanical repetition of
the sound, but) exploring, discovering, realising, its full
significance." 6
OTWR I <R WR ^ TO
I v, 2
2 Bffeft qSfcj U1*K *&$ * I Hi xxiii, 3.
3
w-
I Yoga-surras, i, 25. 72.
va is a name for the
hich re-wov-ates. make
thing, including the
The word Pra-nava is a name for the sound AUM ; it means.
etymologicaliy, ' that which re-wov-ates. makes new. rejuvenates* every-
thin includin the mind's outlook. It is the life-breath of the
110 THE MYSTERIOUS WORD-SOUND [SC. OF
Such quotations may be multiplied a hundredfold.
What is the meaning of these very fanciful-sounding
utterances ? Many profound and occult interpreta-
tions of this triune sound have been given expressly
in the Upanishats themselves, also in Gopatha Brah-
mana, and in the books on Tantra ; but the deepest and
most luminous of all remains implicit only. 1 For if the
above seemingly exaggerated statements are to be justified
in all their fullness, then, in view of all that has gone before,
AUM must include within itself, the Self, the Not-Self,
and the mysterious Relation between them which has not
universe. It has many names in Samskrt taraka ortara, udgitha,
sarva-vin-mati, sarva- j3a-tabi ja, pratibha, etc. Manyof
these have been collected, and the special etymological significance of
each indicated, in my Samskrt compilation, Manava-Dhanna-Sara.
1 The reader may feel inconsistency between the decrial of ' mystery-
mongering ' at p. 104 supra, and the reverence shown for riddle-like
scripture-texts here. The differentiating test is in the motive. Where
there is wish to swindle, to gain money, or ' kudos ' and blind worship,
or both, from gullible followers, there we have the ' charlatan '. (It
arouses mixed feelings to remember that the ' great philosopher '
Schopenhauer calls the ' great philosopher ' Hegel a ' charlatan ' !).
Where there is affectionate wish to arouse only deeper, more earnest,
genuine curiosity and search for the highest and most consoling Truth,
as in the case of loving parents and teachers, there the temporary
mysteriousness is justified, nay, desirable, or even necessary ; for the
too easily gained is often not appreciated, is even equally easily thrown
away ; easy come, easy go '. In the case of the Logion, here endeavour-
ed to be expounded, this risk is really serious. Some will think,
' Mere tautology, truism, trash ! ' ; others ' Only an ingenious juggle
with words'. Pew will ponder sufficiently deeply to realise its very
great significance. Therefore Yama wished to avoid the subject,
when questioned by Nachikita (p. 1. supra), and told him, ' Earnest
seeker is even rarer than wise teacher ; very subtle and evasive,
difficult to seize, because so very simple, is the Truth ; marvellous it it,
therefore the speaker of it wouders, and the listener wonders more '.
But times and circumstances change ; as explained in The Mahatma
Letters and H.P. Blavat sky's writings, Spiritual Wisdom has itself to
go out, at special junctures in human history, which recur periodically
and cyclically, seeking worthy 'vessels', receptacles for itself , facing
ridicule and rebuffs.
PEACE, CH. VIl] INTERPRETATION 111
yet been discovered in any of the preceding answers
that mysterious Relation, which, being discovered, the
whole darkness will be lighted up as by the Sun ; the
Relation wherein will be combined Changelessness and
Change. If it does this, then truly is the Indian tradition
justified that all knowledge, all science, is summed up
in the Vedas, all the Vdas in the Gayatri, and the
Gayatrl in the AUM ; then truly are all the Vedas and
all possible knowledge there, for all the W,orld- Process is
there. The Self, the Not-Self, and their mutual Relation
these three, the Primal Trinity, the root-base of all
possible trinities, exhaust the whole of thought, the whole
of knowledge, the whole of the World- Process. There is
nothing left that is beyond and outside of this Primal
Trinity, which, in its Unity, its tri-une-ness, constitutes
the Absolute which is, and wherein is, the Totality of
the World- Process the World-Process, which is nothing
else than the Self or Pratyag-atma, the Not-Self
or Mula-prakrti, and their L 1 1 a or Interplay ; the
Three-in-One constituting Param-Atma.
But how can these three be said to be expressed by
a single word ? The immemorial custom of summing up
a series, or of expressing a fact, in a single letter, and
then of joining letters, thus significant, into a single word
of which many examples are to be found in the Upani-
shats gives the clue here. 1 Each letter of this word
1 This ancient method of expressing a profound truth by assigning
to each of its factors a letter, and then writing down the letters as a
word, meaningless, a mere sound, except for the meanings thus indicated,
is perhaps not familiar to, and therefore may not commend itself to.
112 ANAGOGY [SCIENCE OF
must be the expression of a fact, and the juxtaposition
of the letters must signify the relation between the facts.
The first letter of the sacred word, A, signifies the
Self ; the second letter, U, signifies the Not-Self; and
the third letter, M, signifies the everlasting Relation, the
unbreakable nexus of Negation, by the Self, o/ the Not-
Self between them.
According to this interpretation of the AUM, the full
meaning of it, would be the proposition, Ego Non-Ego
Non (est) 9 or I Not- 1 Not (am), which sums up all
the three factors of the World-Process into a single pro-
position and a Single Act of Consciousness.
A plain example of this method occurs in the Chhan-
dogya* : " The name of Brahman is Truth, or the True,
sat yam, which consists of three letters, sa, ti, and
yam.Sa is the Unperishing ; Ti is the Perishing;
Yam holds, binds, Relates the two together." The
modern thought. These * mystic words, ' of which so many are found in
ancient writings, and, later, in Gnostic and Kabbalistic works, are regard-
ed as jargon by the modern mind. Yet in these same words, ancient
wisdom has imbedded its profoundest conceptions, and AUM is just
such a word. The method is- known as akshara-mushti or akshara-
mudra, ' handful ' or * diagram-seal ' of letters. (World- War II began
in Sept. 1939 in Europe, and closed there in May 1945. with the
surrender of Germany ; it began in Asia in Dec. 1941, and closed in
Aug. -Sep. 1945, with the surrender of Japan ; it has created scores of
such code-words, temporarily ; thus, USOWI means t/nited States Office
of War /information). But OM as pure humming sound also, has deep
significance ; it is the primal sound-continuum of Nature, the first
garment of God, the first sensuous manifestation of the Self ; it is
probably what is meant by ' the Word ', in the Christian Bible, where
it says that " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God ".
i srfa 5 9flr t^rrft sftfa si^KFfa, *r, fct,
w ^Ri^f aSff^f i
VIII. iii, 5,
P., CH. VIl] THE FALSE ENCIRCLED BY THE TRUE 113
' unperishing ' here means nothing else than the unlimited
universal Self, Pratyag- atma; the 'perishing' is the
endlessly perishing, ever-renewed and ever-dying, ever-
limited Not-Self or M ula-prakrt i ; the nexus, that
which holds and binds the two together, is the unending
relation of Negation by the One of the Many-Other, in
which Relation, the two are constantly and inseparably
tied to each other, in such a way that the two together
make only the ' number-less ' Absolute, in which the
three, two, and even one, all disappear in the number-
transcending and all-number-containing circle of the
cipher.
A similar statement, again using almost the same
words, is made in the Brhad-Aranyaka. 1 " Truth,
s a t y a m, verily is Brahman. . . . The gods contemplate
and worship the truth, sat yam, only. Three-lettered is
this sat yam; sa is one letter, ti is one letter, and
yam is one letter. The first and the last letters,
im perishables, are true ; in the middle is the false and
fleeting. The False is encompassed round on both sides
by the True. The True is the more, the greater, the pre-
vailing. He that knoweth this he may not be over-
powered by the False." Here sa, the first truth, is Being;
and yam, the second truth, is Nothing, for both are
tin TO i
i v, v, i.
114 HOW KNOW ALL AT ONCE ? [SC. OF
imperishable ; the middle is Becoming, the ever-fleeting
and ever-false. In other words, the Self is reality ; the
Negation, of the Not-Self by the Self, is also reality ;
the Not-Self is not reality, it is only appearance,
illusion.
The Devl-Bhagavata says l : " Why, by what means,
from what substance, has all this world arisen ? How
I I. xv, 51-52.
And again :
I VII, xxxii, 2.
"*I*(alone was, in the beginning)-Not- Another (i.e., no-thing-else,,
O Lord of Mountains \) ' such is the form or nature of the Self* which
is called Consciousness or Para-Brahma."
The Vishnu-Bhagavata (commonly known as Shrimad Bhagavata,
Ot simply as Bhagavata) also has some verses in almost the same words :
The orthodox commentator, it is true, explains this as meaning :
' I alone was in the prime of time, and nothing else, neither the
existent, nor the non-existent, nor even Prakrit which is beyond both ;
I was afterwards also, and I am all this, and what remains behind, that
also am I/ But the preceding and succeeding verses, saying : "This
is the deepest and the highest secret, g u h y a and r a h a s y a ; knowing
it you will not fail in spirit throughout the ages," seem to permit of
a more ' secret ' meaning and unusual interpretation, thus : ' I-(alone was
in the beginning) -not-another (which might be existent or non-existent
or other than both) ; in the end also I ; i.e., after that which is known as
P., CH. VIl] ONE SENTENCE WHICH SUMS UP ALL 115
may I know all at once, by a single act of knowledge ?
Thus Mukunda- Vishnu pondered within himself, in the
beginning. Unto him that sovereign Deity, Bhagavati,
uttered that which giveth all explanations in a single
half-verse, viz. : * I, Not Another, is (i.e. 9 am) alone verily
this eternal all.' " This, it seems, is the plainest state-
ment available in the Purana literature, after the V6da,
in which an endeavour is expressly made to sum up the
World-Process in a siugle sentence.
The Yoga Vasishtha says 1 : " I, pure consciousness,
subtler than space, am not anything limited such is the
This has been negated, that which remains, that am 1." Elsewhere, the
work repeats ;
^3" I VI iv 47 * The same JPtMiftfMif
repeatedly describes the Supreme in phrases or by epithets which find their
full significance only in the Logion expounded here, thus :
* the Self whose character is * the not-many consciousness *. f
III. v, 23 ; or 33^351 cl^%3s 3Rr3y^ ^W[ I ' It is Brahma(n), It is the
Supreme Cause, the One, the Not-Another,' VI, iv, 30; or g^i
3*TT, 'the Supreme whose form is not-This,' X, ii. 42: or
^^l 3fM^3F3K, 'Thou art the ever wantless,
changeless Brahma(n), Not-Another, Other-than-all-This,' VIII. xii, 7.
Nirvana-prakarana. Purvardha. cxviii, 9.
The Antibhuti-prakasha-sar-oddhara has also a shloka (157) which
describes Brahman as a n - i d a m, Not-This :
116 CONSENSUS OF OLD TEXTS [SC. OF
eternal buddhi (idea) that freeth from the bonds of
samsara, the World- Process."
The Yoga and Sankhya systems describe the sup-
reme consciousness of K6vala-ta, Kaivalyam, Sole-
ness, One-ness, L-one-(li)-ness, On(e)li-ness, (their word
for moksha), as being of the nature of the awareness
that Purusha (the Self) is other- than-sattva (i.e.,
Prakrti, sattva being the finest representative thereof). 1
The * great hymn ' addresses the Supreme thus : *
* Thou whom the dazzled scripture doth describe
As being Negation of what Thou art Not.'
Glta also has a verse which may be literally trans-
lated : * Than the / anything Other is Not ; in the / is
all This woven, as gems are strung on a thread.' s
Put into one sentence, such descriptions can take no
other form than that of the logion, Ego-Non-Ego-Non
(sum). 4
Such are a few of the utterances of sacred literature
that at once become lighted up when the light of this
'An-I4 an*. Not- This, has been declared to be the form, the
nature, of Brahman. Such is the name of that which is Nameless.
Such is verily the truth. So have we heard/
: or
i, verse 2.
i sifrd, 33 irfiwr & i va. 7.
4 More texts are gathered together in a Note at the end
of this chapter.
P., CH. VIl] ITS LIVING COMPREHENSIVENESS 117
summation is brought to bear on them. Thus does
the Pranava, the AUM, the sacred word, embody in
itself the universe ; thus does it include all previous ten-
tative summations ; thus is it the very heart and essence
of the scriptures ; so only is the tradition justified that
all the universe is in the Pranava. Herein we find that
what before were the parts of a machine, apart and
dead, are now assembled, powerful, and active as an
organism. Herein we find the two great scripture-texts
combined into one statement, that gives a new and all-
satisfying significance to them. Herein we see all
Hegel, and far more; and the three propositions of
Fichte compressed into one, which is a re-arrangement
of his second. 1
l .See p. 85, supra. sift 3?T. Brhaf Up. 1-4-10 ; 5? ?f
^T, 4.4.19 ; Katha. 4.11. See also p. 47 supra. " It is difficult
to find a single speculation in western metaphysics which has not been
anticipated by archaic eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert Spencer.
it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita, Advaita, and Vdantic
doctrines generally " ; H.P.B. The Secret Doctrine, I. 49.
A western writer says that Hegel was ' ' the first who succeeded in
making the history of philosophy intelligible, by showing that it is not
a mere succession of conflicting opinions, but a gradual unfolding of
more and more comprehensive interpretations of reality ". ' First in the
west ' we should add ; in the east, the Puranas, several thousand years
before Hegel, (and now The Secret Doctrine), have made the history of
philosophy, and the philosophy of history also, intelligible, and far more
intelligible. But Hegel's eloquent, and true, sentences, on the subject,
deserve to be quoted, as pertinent to the text. " Firstly every philosophy
that deserves the name, always has the Idea " (we may say, ' the Divine
Plan', 'the Logion 1 , M ah a- v aky a, the Scheme of the World-
Process in the Universal Mind) " for its subject-matter or contents; and
secondly, every system should represent to us one particular factor or
particular stage in the evolution" (manifestation)" of the Idea. The
refutation of a philosophy, therefore, only means that its limits are
passed and that the fixed principles in it have been reduced , in it to an
118 PANTHEON OF PHILOSOPHIES [SC. OF
And it is not only a rearrangement of it, though
that is important enough, but more. If the statement
that " Being is Nothing " is not only external to us but
unintelligible and self-contradictory, the statement that
" Ego is not Non-Ego " is not yet quite internal, though
certainly consistent and intelligible. It does not yet
quite come home to us. The verb 'is, 1 and the order of
the words in the sentence, make us feel that the state-
ment embodies a cut-and-dried fact in which there is no
movement, and which is there, before us, but away from
us, not in us. The negative ' not ' entirely overpowers
the affirmative * is/ and appropriates all the possibility of
significance to itself, so that the rhythmic swing between
the Ego and the Non-Ego, between us and our surround-
ings, which would be gained by emphasising and bring-
ing out t;he force of the affirmative * is ' also, is entirely
organic element in the completer principle that follows. Thus the
history of philosophy, in its true meaning, deals, not with the past, but
with the eternal and the veritable present ; and in its results, resembles
not a museum of the aberrations of the human intellect, but a pantheon
of god-like figures. These figures are the various stages " (factors) " of
the Idea, as they come forward one after another in dialectical develop-
ment* 1 (cyclic manifestation) : Wallace, Logic of Hegel, 1st. edn., pp.
135-137. We have only to add that all these ' interpretations of reality ',
* philosophies ' ' god-like figures ' fall under one or another of the three
main ones: arambha. paripama, adhyasa orvivarta, cor*
responding to Dvaita, Vishisht-atjvaita, Acjvaita ; or theism '(deism),
dualism, (monistic) non-dualism; or the theories of popular, scientific,
metaphysical causation; or (substantial) realism, (materio-energic)
transformationism, (ideational or imaginative) illusionism. ' Ab-err-
ations of the intellect ' also, have their necessary place among these as
' self-alienating ' materialism, a-vidya. And philosophy in corres-
pondence with the World-Process, Universal Mind, Cosmic History is
always treading the cyclic round of the same three, in ever new words
*nd settings and surroundings, ever fresh morning-noon-evening, simple
childhood, complex middle age, and sage eld. All Evolution is such,
biological as well as psychological; forward, then backward, then
further forward.
P., CH. VIl] 'IS' MEANS ' AM ' 119
hidden out of sight, and only a bare, dead, negation is
left. But now we change the order of the words ; and
the spirit of the old languages, the natural law underlying
their construction, comes to our help. We place the
Ego and the Non-Ego in juxtaposition, and an affirmative
Relation appears between them first, to be followed
afterwards by the development of the negative Relation,
in consequence of the negative particle. And, more than
this, we replace the ' is ' by ' am,' the ' est ' by ' sum, 9
as we have every right to do ; for, in connection with the
Self, with I, A h a m , * is ' has no other sense than
'am'; and in place of Non-Ego, An -ah am, we
substitute ' This,' Etat, for we have seen their equiva-
lence before ' and will do so again later, in the section
on Mula-Prakrti. Our logion therefore now runs as
"Aham Etat Na," * "I This Not (am)". In the
Samskrt form the word corresponding to ' am,' trig.,
a s m i , is not needed at all, for it is thoroughly
implied and understood. But as soon as we have
the logion in this new form, " Aham Etat Na," we
see that there is a whole world more of significance
in it than the dry statement of the logical law of con*
tradiction, " A is not not-A," " Ego is not Non-Ego ".
It is no longer a mere formal logical law of thought ;
it is Transcendental Log-ic, Supreme all-comprehending
Law of all Being ; Thought which is identical with
All Reality. The one law of all laws, the pulse of
1 Ch. IV. p. 38, Supra,
3
120 JOY OF FINDING [SC. OF
the World-Process, the very heart-beat of all life is
here, now. The rhythm between the Self and the Not-
Self, their coming together and going apart, the essence
of all Change, is expressed by it, when we take it in two
parts ; and yet, when we take the three constituents of it
at once, it expresses Changelessness also.
As a man seeking for the vale of happiness, may toil
for days and nights through a maze of mountain-ranges,
and come at last to a dead wall of rock, and find himself
despairing, and a sudden casual push of the arm may
move aside a bush, or a slab of stone, and disclose a
passage through which he may rush eagerly to the top of
the highest peak, wondering how he had failed to see it
all this while it looks so unmistakable now and may
behold, spread clear and still before him, the panorama of
the scenes, of his toilsome journey, on the one side, com-
pleted and finished by the scenes of that happy vale of
smiling flowers and fruits and crystal waters, on the other
such is the finding of this great summation. All the
problems that bewildered him before, now receive easy
solution, and many statements that puzzled him formerly,
in the scriptural literature of the nations, begin to be-
come intelligible.
After finding the truth of this great logion for him-
self, the enquirer will find confirmation of it everywhere
in the old books, as well as in the world around him.
NOTE I. It should be noted here that the references to
the Upanishats, Puranas, etc., are not made with any idea of
supporting the logion by "appeals to scripture '. Rather, the
P., CH. VII] NO ' APPEALS TO SCRIPTURE ' 121
intention is to suggest a new way of working with the sacred
books, which may be of use to some readers ; for few will
doubt that it is a great joy to find that what is dear to
us has been and is dear to others too. Whether any
definite proofs will or will not be found by experts and
scholars, that the logion was really meant by the AUM, to the
ancients, does not affect its importance as an explanation and
summation of the World -Process. The logion came to the
present writer first in 1887, as the needed explanation of the
universe, in the course of his studies in Indian and Western
philosophy. He then endeavoured to find confirmation of it
in Samskrt works, but vainly, for thirteen years. Till the
summer of 1900, when these chapters were first drafted, it
remained for him only a guess and a possibility that the AUM
meant the logion. This guess was justified, for him, in the
autumn of 1900, in a most remarkable manner, the story of
which has now been told in the Preface to The Science of the
Sacred Word, a summarised English version of the Praqava-
Vada oj Gargyayaqa, the three volumes of which were pub-
lished respectively in 1910, 1911 and 1913, while the first
edition of The Science of Peace was published in 1904.
As to whether that * remarkable manner * will prove con-
vincing to others, is for the future to decide. In the mean-
while, it should be repeated here that the logion should be
judged on its own merits, and that the main purpose of
quotiing from the Upanishajs, etc., is to help on the thought
of the reader, by placing before him the thought, embodied in
those quotations, as at least working in the direction of the
logion. To those interested in the method of thinking out-
lined here, the work will serve as an introduction to the
Pranava-vada> where they will find many illuminative details.
NOTE II. In view of the vital importance of the Logion
as well as the strange-ness of it, some more texts are recorded
below, in support.
Wf fft: SR ^f 5Rnpft SMRWRt cfcf:
^r: s5
Vishnu Puraqa, 1. 22. 86.
122 MORE ANCIENT TEXTS [SC. OF
Literal translation would be : ' /, Hari, all, this, Janar-
dana, not, other, from which, cause-effect-product, (mass,
multitude) such, mind, whose, not, his, (i.e., to him), any
more, Becoming-born (i.e. 9 world-born), pair-ills, happen '. The
current commentary by Ratna-garbha summarily explains
this as, * From the understanding that Vishnu (Hari, Janar-
dana) is all the world, there results cessation of samsara
(process of births and deaths) '. If the reader is satisfied
with this, well and good ; if not, then he may give special
attention to the words ' I ', ' This ', * Not Other ', and arrange
the sentence (as he can, without any violation of Skf . gram-
mar) thus : * / not thts-Other (is the Supreme Conscious-
ness or Idea), from which (and in which, arises and proceeds
all) the mass and multitude of causes and effects (which
constitutes the World -Process) he whose mind is (become
identified with) such (Consciousness), for him there are no
more any (mental) ills produced by the countless pairs of
opposites that are born from (and make up the World-Process
of) Becoming; (such) 7 (is) Hari (har-vatiduhkham
i t i Harih, who destroys all sorrow), and Jan-ardana
(janam ardayati, ends all rebirth).' Opposites conflict ;
conflict distresses ; as Buddha said in his first sermon, on
the Four Great Truths, " To meet what we dislike, causes
misery ; to lose what we like causes misery ". Conflict of
dual, polar pairs, is the root of all misery, K 1 e s h a.
I Bhagavata, 11. 13. 22-24.
Op. cit. 2. 2. 27 ; also Chhandogya, 8. 4. L
('The Self is Not-Many') Not-Many-ness is the Self s
. . . Only /-Not-Other-than-I understand this well. . . .
There is no sorrow, no age-ing decay, no death, (i.e., no fear
of these), in the heart, c h i 1 1 a , of those who, by the bless-
ing of the Self, have realised (the Self as) Not-This '.
1'., CH. VII] STATING THE LOGION 123
Chhandogya, 7. 23. 1 ; 7. 24. 1.
4 There is no Joy in the (or in being and feeling) small ;
only (the feel of) Utmost Greatness, B h u m a , is Bliss.
Where (and when, the Self) sees Not-Another, hears Not-
Another, knows No-Other (than It-Self), that is B h u m a ,
Maximus Ultimus, (In-fini-ty beyond compare). Where
(the small individualised personalised Self) sees, hears, knows,
An-Other, (feels that there is An-Other, that there are Others,
than it-Self, which is and are independent of it and limit it,
hem it in, on all sides), that is (the feeling of being) small,
(the finite). In-fini-tude, Bhuma, is Im-mortality ; the
small (the limited) is mortal.'
IT w 3ft wrt ^ffir^f: i s
I Brhad, 1, 4. 1-2.
1 The Self al-one was, (and was aware of It-Self even)
as a man, puru-sha, person (is, and is aware). It looked
round. It saw None-Other-than-Self. It said / am I Its
name therefore became Ah-am. It thought Non-Else-than-I
(is there).'
Let the reader carefully consider the meaning in the
Glta, of 3flt-3F3r-%c!r: (8. 14), aRKTOT (8. 22 ; 11. 54), 3R?q-
we: (9. is), sR^r: (9. 22), 3R5*HTT^(9. so), 3R5$* (12. 6),
3fflF*Hltfta (13. 10). Of course there is the prima
facie simple devotional meaning, * whole-hearted devotion to
Krshna only and no other '. For the temperaments which
are content with this, and seek no further, there is nothing
more to say. For the unsatisfied and further-enquiring spirits,
there is the other meaning also, beneath the surface, implying
the Logion. Let the reader reflect carefully whether this
latter brings any special comfort to his questioning, arguing,
intellect, his head, as well as to his (partly selfish and partly
unselfish) heart.
124 PUZZLE-WORDS OF AN UPANISHAT [SC. OF
Let the reader similarly dwell upon the puzzle-words
of the Katha Upanishat,
I 2. 8, and
I 2. 20.
Shankaracharya, in his Bhashya, gives three or even four
alternative and doubting explanations of the first sentence ; he
reads it with ??%:, and again with swflf:. After pondering on
those, let the reader endeavour to see if the following inter-
pretation throws any light into the obscurity : ' It is not un-
approachable, not inapprehensible that Supreme Mystery,
subtler than the subtlest atom ; if It be described by (or as)
Not- Another '. Our-Self must apprehend the Self ; It must be
seen with one's own eyes, not-with-another's ; and It must be
apprehended as I-Not-Another. Shankara's plain, simple,
straightforward explanation of the second sentence is, ' Who
other than I (Yama, who am instructing you, Nachik6Ja) is
of sufficiently subtle intelligence, to know that God, D v a ,
who is the reservoir of all contradictions, who is M a d a ,
Elation, Pride, Joy, as well as a- M a da, Non-elation, De-
pression, Sorrow, both at once ? ! ' Such a claim, such a chal-
lenge, seems to imply lack of due modesty, and plenitude of
undue aggressiveness, which are not worthy of a teacher of
Vedanta ! One expects such to be benevolent and reverend !
Yama could scarcely have been so conceited when dealing
with such a solemn subject ! (It must be admitted, though,
that some of the teachers of Brahma-vidya, in the Upanishats,
behave very vulgarly and rudely, e.g.j Raikva of the cart ' ;
and Yajna-valkya, in particular by the descriptions of his
doings in the, Upanishats as well as the Puraijas, which des-
criptions cannot be explained ' mystically ' was a very
aggressive and now and there even criminal person, though, no
doubt, of great intellectual power and influence. Yoga-
Bhashya and Bhagavata and other Puranas tell us that
remnants of rajas-tamas persist for some time even after
the vision of the all-embracing Self. Even after the supply
of fuel has been cut off, embers continue to smoulder for
some time. This is plain psychology ; nothing mysterious ;
so long as the body lasts, the wisest and most self -controlled
P., CH. VIl] ALLEGORIES AND ' BLINDS ' 125
sage remains liable to fits of passion). Let us translate this
second sentence as follows: * Who Else- than -I can know
that God who is Mat (I) A-(Not) A-Mat (Not-I) ; how
otherwise than as I-Not-Another can that God be known ? '
The very out-of-place pugnacious challenge becomes trans-
formed into the declaration of a profound truth.
H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine throws precious
light into the dense darkness of many ' allegories * and
4 blinds ' of the V6das and Puranas, and also of the scriptures
of other dead and living religions. She has indicated (op. cit.
I, 314-315; V, 371, etc., and in her other great work, Isis
Unveiled, and other writings also) that the works now going
under the name of Shankara are not all written by the original
first or Adi Shankara-acharya ! ; that much ' sacred writing '
on ' occult * subjects has been withdrawn and hidden away,
for historical reasons, by the custodians of m a t h a - s
(abbeys, convents) ; that new compositions have been sub-
stituted by later Shankar-acharyas (the name has become the
official designation of all the successive heads of a number of
math a-s, like ' Pope ') ; and that even in the genuine writ-
ings, ' blinds ' are often used to mystify the in-alert student,
who is not in deadly earnest, is therefore easily thrown off the
scent, does not question persistently, and even gives up the
study in disgust as worthless twaddle.
Let us pass on to other texts.
3Tf ^ 5^ l-Sp^Rt I Varaha Upanishat, ii, 7.
* / al-one (am and is) bliss, Not -Another '.
flt 3TS <ref if ^ 3?wjt arftc! t Maha-bhnrata, Anu-shasana-
parva, ch. 168.
' That / on(e)-ly (is and am), there is Not -Another
than I '.
In terms of 3^c , there is a very curious and remarkable,
riddling, jingling, alliterative, abracadabra-like aphorism, in
the Nyaya-Sufra-s :
: I. 2. 2. 30.
1 The Secret Doctrine says that the first Shankar-acharya appeared
eighty years after Buddha's dis appearance. The list of successors main-
tained at the Sharacja-Pitham a t ha of Dvaraka (Gujerat) supports this.
126 RIDDLING iVytfya-APHORISM [SC. OF
The context, in which this is set down, is a discussion as to
whether 'sound' is nitya, eternal, or a-ni$ya,non-
eternal, temporal ; and the authoritative commentary, Vatsya-
yana's Bh­a, tries to explain it very briefly in relevance
to the context ; but the obscurity is not lighted up, at least
for the present writer. Another interpretation is therefore
suggested here, after putting a semi-colon after the first
two words, and another after the next two : ' (The Self is)
Other -Than-Other, (i.e., the Self is Self alone, is not anything
other than It-Self) ; because there is No-Other-Than-It,
therefore is It (describable as) Not-Another ; thus, there is
Negation of Otherness (i.e, the Self is Negation of all Other-
than-Self) '. In other words, the Self is ' I-this-Not '. Com-
pare this with a literal word for word translation : ' Another,
than another, because of not-other-ness, Not-another, such,
absence of other- ness ' ; or, if we read the last word as, not
a - b h a v a but, b h a v a, then, in the translation, the last
three words would read ' presence or being or existence of
other-ness '.
The Mandukya-kanka-s are 100 verses by Gauda-pada.
They expound the meaning of the Mandukya Upanishat.
Gauda-pada was the guru of Govinda, who was the guru
of the ShankarS-charya, (seventh or eighth century A. C.)
whose Bhashyas on the Karikft-s etc. are current. The last
two verses belong, it seems, to the same class of ' mystical '
xitterances as the texts above dealt with. They are
PR
SIR 1 -*pnr flft
99-100.
Word-for-word translation is : 'Steps (proceeds, moves succes-
sively step after step), not, Buddha's knowledge, in (or amidst)
d h a r m a-s (functions, attributes, properties, qualities), Tayi's,
all, d h a r m a - s, also, knowledge, Not, this, by Buddha, saidv
Difficult to see, very profound, unborn, same, skilful (proficient.
P., CH. VII] " MANDUKYA KARIKX" AND BUDDHA 127
or famous), having known, the condition (state, status, pa da),
Not- Many -ness, salutation, we make, as our strength (is or
allows) '. Shankara puts in supplementary words to fill up
gaps, and construes the verses in his own way, which is not
clear and satisfactory to the present writer. He winds up by
saying that ' Buddha has not said this, which has been ex-
pounded here (by Gauda-pada, and which is the genuine
Vdanta), which Buddha has only come near but did not quite
attain '*, Shankara avoids the fact that one technical desig-
nation of Buddha, in Ma hay ana Buddhism, is Tayi. The
word is explained by Prajna-kara-maji, in his commentary,
Panjika, on Shanfi-deva's Bodhi-charya-vatara (3. 2). It
means ' Spreader of knowledge (from Skt. t a y, to spread,
protect, preserve), who does not actually enter into the Nir-
vana or Pari-nirvaija state, though able to do so, but continues
to keep in touch with the human world in order unremittingly
to help souls and guide them on the Upward Path.' The
Maha-yana tradition is that, for this purpose, Buddha wears
a body of subtle ethereal matter, formed by his own wiJJ-
and-ideation, nirmana-kaya; (Secret Doctrine, V. 364
et seq.); and gives the needed help mostly by spiritual
thought-force, shubha-anu-dhyan'a; sometimes by over-
shadowing and inspiring a specially qualified human being,
a v e s h a, and * spreading knowledge ' through him ; rarely,
by actually taking birth in a human body, avatar a.
Gauda-pada may well have had access to some of
the lore subsequently losj, in the turmoil of foreign inva-
sions, and by changes in the public's tastes and interests.
One school of Vedantins says that Tayi means ' thief 1 ,
and Buddha is called so because he stole the esoteric
knowledge from his brahmana guru-s and published it to
the world ; (Secret Doctrine, ibid.). The word t ay u occurs
in the V6da in the sense of thief. It will be remem-
bered that the word ' Buddha ' means ' enlightened with
spiritual wisdom ', ' wise ', ' he who has known ', generally ;
and also Gautama, * the wise one ', ' the enlightened one ',
specially. Shankara explains 'Buddhasya tayinah',
of the first line, in the general sense : ' The knowledge of
the wise man who has seen the Highest, does not move
to other d h a r m a s , but remains fixed in its own h a r ma,
128 LOGION IN " THE SECRET DOCTRINE " [SC. OF
as light in the sun ' ; (the man in the street would think
that the light of the sun does nothing else than spread to
all quarters and to far distances !) ; ' it is t ayi, continuous,
like a k a s h a, spare. T a y- i n a h , which means s a n t a n a-
v a t a h , may also means puja-vatah, or it may mean
prajna-vatah; i.e. it may mean * spreading ', or receiving
or giving honor and worship, or possessing subtle intelligence
and insight or intuition '. Such are Shankara's explanations
of the first line, various, alternative, doubtful. But he cannot
avoid taking ' Buddhna ' of the second line in the special
sense.
To the present writer, the c mystical ' and real and
consistent sense of the verses seems clear, if attention is
fixed on the words ' Na-Etat ' and ' A-Nana-tvam ', ' Not-
This ' and ' Not-Many-ness ' : * The Awareness, the Consci-
ousnes, of the enlightened soul, as of Buddha the Tayi, is
moveless, un-moving, does not move in successive function-
ings, na gharmeshu kramate, (as the personal mind
does, experiencing cognitions, emotions, volitions or actions,
one after another). Buddha declared that (the Consci-
ousness, ' /-Am-) Not-Thts ' includes, once for all, all function-
ing, all knowing. Such is the very subtle, very profound,
Truth, very difficult to see the Truth of the Unborn,
Undying, Self-luminous, Ever-the-Same-ness. It is the
High State of Being whose sole all-comprehending character-
istic is the Consciousness " (the One / is and am) Not-Many
(i.e. not these countless This-es) ". Unto that Supreme
State of Consciousness, we make reverent salutation, and
we direct and open our minds to It with all our power of
concentration and devotion '.
Mme. H. P. Blavatsky does not appear to have made
anything like a specific mention of the Logion, but hints of
the Idea are to be found scattered here and there in The
Secret Doctrine. Thus she quotes (IV, 197) a reference
made in a Hebrew mystic book, to " the Negatively Existent
One ". The only way to bring home to ourselves, the sense
of this sense-less-seeming expression, seems to be to interpret
it as ' the One Self, I, who exists, i.e., realises Self-Existence,
by Negating Not-Self. It has been repeatedly indicated
P., CH. VIl] A WORD SURPASSING AUM ? 129
before, that the firm and clear apprehension of the nature of,
and of the distinction between, succession- less Eternity and
succession-full Time (past-present-future), is utterly indis-
pensable for the comprehension of the Logion. H. P. B. has
some very significant sentences which clearly suggest this ;
" It must not be supposed that anything can go into Nirvana
which is not eternally there ; but human intellect, in
conceiving the Absolute, must put it as the highest term
in an indefinite series. . . . Those who search for that
highest) must go to the right source of study, the teachings
of the Upanishads, and must go in the right spirit ", (V, 533.)
As the Upanishads say *W tpr ^ Stf wfa | ' Being already
Brahma, he becomes Brahma. To become Brahma, to
attain m o k s h a, is only to remember what had been forgotten,
that one is Eternally Brahma, is Eternally Free ; or, in
terms of Time, that one has always been, is now, will always
be, * Naught-Else than Brahma ', Free from all limitations.
Incidentally, H. P. B. writes (V, 395) : " He fa Brahm-
Ajma) alone could explain the meaning of the sacred word
AUM. . . . But there existed, and still exists to this day, a
Word for surpassing the mysterious monosyllable, and which
renders him who comes into possession of its key, nearly the
equal of Brihrnan." It is difficult to make sure whether this
is to be taken literally ; and what the last word ' Br&hman r
means, whether Brahma or Brahma. It is well known that
H. P. B. was fond of quizzing, mystifying, testing, her
followers and questioners. It is not impossible that she
casually threw out the idea of " a Word far surpassing " etc.,
to see whether her readers had steadiness enough to secure
and make sure of what was within reach, and would study the
Upanishats to find ' the highest ' ; or would fickle-mindedly
run off after a ' far surpassing ' will-o'-the wisp. There are
sects in India today which teach their followers that their deity
is fourteen degrees higher than the Vedanja's Para- Brahma.
The Upanishats make no mention of any such word ' far sur-
passing AUM '. Of course, as merely sound (an intensification,
modulation, of this same primal ' seed '-sound, so to say),
there may be another sound, more ' powerful * for purposes
of producing practical effects, as the roar of a steam-siren is
9
130 BUDDHA AND ESOTERIC SCIENCE [SC. OF
more powerful than the hum of a bee. But so far as meta-
physical significance is concerned, Tri-Une AUM is exhaus-
tive and Supreme, once for all. Outside the Infinite Eternal
Changeless sole Subject, the pseudo-infinite ever-continuingly
temporal changeful multitudinous Object, and the affirmative-
negative Relation between them outside these, there is
nothing left to know. But, of course, the details of parti&uttir
subjects and objects and relations are endless, exhaus'tless ;
they require the totality of in-numer-able physical and super-
physical (both Material-and- Psychical) sciences and un-coun li-
able Time and im-measur-able Space, to master and exhaust.
Buddha, shortly before passing, said to Ananda : " I have
preached the truth without making distinction of exoteric and
esoteric. In respect of truths, I have no such thing as the
plosed fist (baddha-mushti) of those teachers who keep
something back " ; Maha-pari-nibbana Suit a, 32. But, on
an earlier occasion, " While staying at KosambI in a grove of
trees, he asked his disciples : Which are the more, these leaves
which I hold in my hand, or those on the trees in the whole
of the grove ? They answered : Of course, those on the trees
are immensely more. Then he said : So too is that much more
which I have learned and not told you, than that which I
have told you. And I have not told you because it would
not profit you ; would not increase your moral purity, self-
control, self-effacing philanthropy ; would not conduct you to
Nirvana, extinction of selfishness " ; Sawyutta, v. 437.
The reconciliation is that what Buddha taught openly was
the fundamental principles of Metaphysics and of the Ethics
issuing out of that Metaphysics Unselfishness because of the
Universality of the Self the principles most indispensably and
vitally needed for righteous individual and social life ; he did
not thus publicly teach the details of any ' occult ' sciences
and arts of y o g a-s i $ cl h i s, which were taught only to these
few who had been tried and tested and prefected in virtue.
Should the ethico-philosophical principles and practices
of good citizenship be taught broadcast, or the methods of
making * atom-bombs * ?
As to why an air of * mystery ' hangs round even the
metaohvsical exolanation of AUM. see fa. ODD. UQ.subra.
P., CH. VIl] THE LOGION IN " CHARAKA " 131
Let us now examine another old text this time an utterly
plain and direct statement of the Logion. It occurs in the
great work of Ayur-Vda Medicine, Charaka, so named after
its author. The current tradition, (much disputed by orienta-
lists), is that Patanjali (born in the north-west of India, in
2nd century B. C.), began as a brahmana follower of the
Veda- d bar ma ; and, as such, wrote his Maha-Bhashya,
4 Great Commentary ', on Paijini's Aphorisms of Grammar,
and also re-arranged and renovated the old Yoga~Sutra-s,
Aphorisms of Yoga; and then, discarding Vdic ritualism,
became a follower of Buddha, and, under the name
of Charaka, ' the wanderer ', wrote the great^ work on
medicine, largely utilising pre-existing material. (' Charaka *
has other meanings also). In Charaka, as also in the equally
famous, equally classical, equally honored and studied, but
much older work on Medicine, Sushruta, the principles of
Sankhya-Yoga (almost a synonym for Vdanta in those
days, vide Gita) are made the basis of the" principles and
practice of Medicine ; because mind and body, psyche and
physique, are inseparable, and act and react on each other
constantly. Charaka utilises the psychological and metaphysi-
cal principles of Sankhya-Yoga-V6danta, which were only
refreshened by Buddha, who had studied Sankhya with
Alara Kalama, and Yoga with Rudraka or U^daka Rgma-
putra. We find these two very remarkable verses in Charaka :
Sharira-sthana, cb. i, 152-153.
Translation, in accord with the standard commentary of
Chakra*p&ni t is: "All this world, which appears and dis-
appears, which is born and dies, all this is a perpetual series of
causes and effects. All that results from a cause has a begin-
ning and therefore an ending ; being limited at one end, it has
a limit at the other end also ; and, being transient, is painful,
is inseparable from misery; it is Not-Self, a- svam ; it is
non- Eternal: it has not been created by the Self, which is only
132 " CHARAKA " AND SlNKHYA-YOGA [SC. OF
a Spectator and not an actor, which is only a Witness of the
Show. A feeling of identification with this phantas-magoria,
a feeling of its being ' I ' and ' Mine ', s v a - { a, arises
through A-v i $ y a , PrimaJ Error ; and it (the feeling) per-
sists only so long as the b u 4 4 h ' the V i d y a , the right
knowledge, does not arise, viz., the Consciousness ' I-am-
Not-This', Na-Efat-Ahara, and ' This-is-Not-Mine ', Na-
Ef at- Mama, by means of which Consciousness, i.e., hav'
recovered which Consciousness, the Knower, J n a h , l*pt,.
transcends, rises superior to, becomes sovereign oicount-
This '. In other words, his Inner Peace cannot be Exhaust.
any more by the turmoil of the * world ', the ever-' wfej have
a-midst which his body lives ; in his mind, heart, sc <\ m \
has become free, emancipated, from all doubts and | le
Jlvan-rnukja, and is no longer enchained, bouna Dy,
subject to, the ' This,' i.e., this ' object '-world, or any-
thing in it.
The first of the two verses above quoted, is only a version
in slightly varied words, of aphorism 2. 5, of Yoga-Sutra.
"The khySJi (awareness, feeling, sense, notion, thought,
idea, consciousness), belief, that the perishing-impure-misery-
ful-Noo-Self (body) is the Eternal-Pure-Blessed-Self this
is A-Vidya, Ne-Science, Primal Error, Original Sin '.
Another aphorism, very germane to the subject under
treatment, is,
an* s*-ftw *HNt-fow nw ^r ^ ft^F-^r ? R i 3. 54.
The authentic comment can be studied in Vyasa's Bhashya.
Without contradicting it, the following rendering may perhaps
be found to throw some more light upon it : 4 The Awareness,
the knowledge, that results from Discrimination, v i -v 6 k a ,
(between Purusha and Prakrji, I and This, i.e., from
negation of the latter by the former), is devoid of succession
is a - k r a m a , and comprehends at once, all objects and all
ways (i.e., manners, methods, of the workings of all objects)
that knowledge is T a r a k a , deliverer, emancipator, which
carries the soul across (the ocean of doubts and fears and
miseries)'. Taraka is one of the many names of the
P., CH. VII] THE LOGION DECLARED BY BUDDHA 133
PraQava, AUM ; (see fn., p. 109 supra). There are a fair
number of quite technical words (and, of course, ideas) which
are common to Yoga-Sutra and Bhashya and books of
Mahayana Buddhism, and some of these latter throw much
light upon the obscure sentences of the former. That it is
so, is natural, after Buddha's studies, mentioned before, of
Sankhya and Yoga.
Yoga Vasishthti repeats again and again,
****&**%: I
* Not-I-(This-) Body, Not-Mine, (This) Body.'
Finally, we find, in Buddha's own words, the origin
of the Charaka-verses. 1 In a discourse to his Bhikshu-s,
in the town of ShravastI, Buddha says :
W, fimc%, arfiw ; ^ arfN 3 5^ ; V $:^ a*
wffir; ^amnr a $3 *w, ^ft?*far, 5? ^ srarft i
Samyutta Nikaya, Pt. Ill, Khandha-Vagga, pp. 22-23;
repeated in the same words at pp. 44-45.
The Samskrt form of these Pali words is :
4 Bhikshus !, form is not-eternal ; the not-eternal is the
painful ; the painful is the Not-Self ; the Not-Self is Not-
This-Mine, I-This-Not ; This-is-Not-My-Self '.
Buddha has, for some centuries now, in bis own home-
land, and therefore naturally in the west, been debited with
the absurd view that the Self is only a stream of sensations,
etc. ; that there is no Supreme Eternal Self ; and that Nirvapa
1 I had noted down long ago, on the margins of my personal copy of
The Science of Peace, 2ndedn.,p. 110, the English translation from
some book ; bat had inadvertently omitted to note down the name of the
book and the pages. My very worthy friend. Acharya Nar^ncjra Pe*va,
very learned in Buddhist Pali and SanskrJ literature (Principal of the
non-official National College, Kashi Vigya-Pltha, of Benares, and member
of the Legislative Assembly of the United Provinces, who has spent many
years in jail as political prisoner, and has been released only in June,
1945), has very kindly hunted up, at very short notice, and supplied me
with, the original Pali texts and Skf. translations.
9 ??: is the masculine, Jgc1t( is the neuter, form of the same word,
134 BUDDHA MISUNDERSTOOD [SC. OF
means complete annihilation ; (see fn. pp. 33-34, supra).
William James seems to have propounded the same view, in
modern times, viz., that the Self is only a stream, as a
challenging jeu d y esprit, rather than seriously ; his own firm
belief in a permanent ultimate Self has been proved above by
his own words ; (pp. 122-3, supra). Careful orientalists are now
beginning to see the light, and ^to understand that what
Buddha * denied/ even as Vedanja ' negates', is the small self,
the ever-changing personality. Mrs. Rhys Davids, in the new
edition of her Buddhism (1934, H. U. L, series), has
candidly admitted the mistake of her earlier view ; has well
explained the causes which gave rise to the extraordinary
misunderstanding in India and passed thence to the west ; has
shown that Buddha always tacitly assumed, as undeniable
and indisputable, the Being of the Universal Self, Brahma of
the Upanishats ; and has ably propounded the right view,
that, to Buddha, Nirvana meant only the annihilation of
the small selfish-self, i.e., of selfishness; (see especially,
her pp. 198-210). What element of truth there is in the very
human craving for, and belief in, 'personal immortality',
will be discussed in a later .chapter.
Besides these causes there was another and far worse cause.
This was* the wicked and wilful perversion of Buddha's teach-
ings, under the stress of bestially sensualist appetites, by some
sects of his followers. The worst and most infamous of
these is the Vajra-yana sect ; its professions, i.e., theories,
are much the same as those of the Charvaka-materialists,
* there is no soul, no life after death, no right and no
wrong, no sin and no merit, therefore eat, drink, and be
merry as you .best can, while you are alive '. Such a theory
is obviously indispensable to justify the sect's practice, which
is the same* as that of the Vama-marga Tantrikas,
the ' Black Magicians of the Left-hand Path ' ; vide the
Guhya-Sam&ja-Tantra or TathZ-gafa-guhyaka, Baroda
Oriental Series)." Such >sects "have grown up within the pale
of every religion, dead or living, even as darkness gathers,
under the lamp. Accumulation of immense wealth in the
vihSra-s, matha-s, (Christian) abbeys, * Vatican' -s r
(Muslim) Khaniqah-s, dargah-s, etc., has always led to such
foul consequences in religious * palaces ', even as in secular.
P., CH. Vll] ORIENTALISTS' CONFESSION 135
As to the Self, which his later sensualist followers denied*
Buddha is reported to have said, on one occasion : * The
material form is not your -Self, not the Self ; sensations are
noc the Self ; conformations and predispositions are not
the Self ; the consciousness is not the Self ' ; (Vinaya, 1. 23).
The word Self, repeated so often, is specially noteworthy ;
the word ' consciousness ' here means particular conscious*
ness of particular things. Elsewhere, again, Buddha says*
^....flWcft 3fflRr 9Tfa; Samyutta Nikaya, 1. 75, (Udana, 47).
In Skt., * ftrarat SflWfT (31RIR:) ffftrat (ffcfacl );' there is
nothing anywhere which is dearer than the Self '. This is
only what the Upanishad said much earlier,
' All that is dear, is dear for the sake of the Self ; the Self i$
the Best and the Dearest '.
George Grimm, in his book, The Doctrine of the Buddha*
T/ie Religion of Reason (pub : 1926, by Offizin W. Drugulin,
Leipzig) describes Sariputja as saying to Yamaka (pp. 166,
167) : " All corporeal form what-soever,...all sensation,. ..all
perception,.. .all activities of the mind whatsoever,... all con-
sciousness, is not Atma, the Self; the correct view,
the highest knowledge, is :_' This is not mine ; this am I
noti this is not my Ego, Ajma '..." Grimm does not men-
tion references ; but the first part of the translation seems
to be of a text of Samyutta Nikaya, Pt. Ill, op. cit., from the
Dialogue of Sariputta and Yamaka, p. 115; and the second
part is a translation of the Buddha's words, quoted before/
The two seem to have been mixed up by Grimm ; not sur-
prising, since the first part is also only a repetition by Sari*
putta of what he had heard from Buddha. The vital words
(italicised by me) ' This I am Not ' are there ; so too ' the
highest knowledge ' ; but did Grimm realise the Infinite
Skt. version : 3:
136 BUDDHA RE-TAUGHT TRUE VEDANTA [SC. OF
Significance that blazes up in those very same words if we read
them with capital initials and arranged as ' I -This- Not (am) ' ?
On pp. 500-502 of his book, Grimm writes : M The
Buddha has not become untrue to Indian thinking ; rather'is
his doctrine the flower of Indian thought. He is * the trite
Brahmin* (brShmat?a) who has completely realised the
Upanishads . . . What would it mean to deny the Atta
(Ajma), to deny thereby my-self, me (My-Self, Me), the
primary fact which alone I cannot doubt ? For am I not the
most real thing of all for my-self (My-Self), so real that the
whole world may perish, if only I, this all and one ( A 11 -and -
One, All-One, Al-One) for every single individual, remains
unaffected by the general ruin ? " This is all good and sound.
It indicates the new trend towards the true interpretation
of Buddha's 'view,' darshana, as identical with that of
the Upanishads.
The battle between Vidya and A-Vidya, Truth and
Error, gods and titans, angels and devils, cor-rect-ors and
per-vert-ors, is ever-lasting. When the Not-Self threatens
to black out the Light of the Self altogether, the Self shines
out strongly in Krshija-s and Buddha-s and Shankara-s, and
Negates a.nd brushes aside the Not-Self.
_ Many verses of the Dhamma-pada> relating to ths
Atmg, read almost like translations of Gf/0-verses One
famous counsel to his Bhikshus, uttered on other occasions
Other Pali sentences, in the same context, rendered in Skt., are :
etc. ; 5f , ^iTOl etc. 3?TcW J
I Samyutta Pt. Ill, pp. 113-115.
Elsewhere (U<J5na, Vagga 8. p. 80), Buddha says :
Skt. version) 3jfel, fif^: !, aTSTRT, WJjf, 3f^i^*d ; 5ft
etc., 5T ?
'Bhikshus!, there is That (Self) Which is Un-born, Un-begun.
Un-create, Un-compounded. Were there not Such, emanation oC all
that is born, begun, created, compounded, would not be known ; nor
escape from this all and re-mergence back into It '. Thus is the Eternal
Changeless Partless Self, Atm, asserted by Buddha over and over again.
p., CH. vn] BUDDHA'S LAST WORDS 137
also, is said by tradition to have been repeated by him, as
his last words, just before his Immortal Atma cast away Its
mortal frame, to those who gathered round' him at that time.
With that great laudation of the glory of the Suprerne Self,
and also, repudiation of the Not-Self, of all Other-Than-Self,
this note may properly be closed.
3T5|53HEK<JiT I Samytttta Nikaya, ibid., p. 42 ; MahU-
part -nibb ana Suit a > 2. 26.
in Skt :
' Go to the peoples of the earth, my mendicant missioners ! ,
doing the duty of your mission, gently persuading men and
women into the blessed eightfold Path of Virtue ! Be your One
Light, the Self ; be your Sole Refuge, the Self ; let No-Other
than the Self be your Refuge. Be Dharma, which is Brahma-
in-Practice, Theory- at- Work, Principle -in- Application, be such
Dharma your Lamp ; be such Dharma, your Refuge ; be
Naught-Else your Refuge. Be ye Self-reliant; Not-Other-
dependent.' Nirvana is the extinction of selfishness, and
of all doubts and fears, all evil thoughts and passions, which
all inevitably spring from selfishness, from clinging to the
body, only. It is the extinction of all restlessness and
discontent of mind. It is attainment of inner reposefulness,
equ-animity, equ-ability, serenity, undisturbable calm. In
the living Emancipate, still wearing a body, it has degrees ;
it grows more and more towards perfection \ therefore the
books speak of Brahma-vid, Brahma-vid-vara, Brahma-vid-
varishtha, ' knower of Brahma ', ' better knower of Brahma ',
* best knower of Brahma '. Nirvana is not power to perform
any so-called miracles, to * see ' what is going on in Sirius
or Canopus, or make a continent sink beneath the ocean by
a mere fiat, any more than it is to make an aeroplane rush
500 miles per hour, or blast a whole town with a single
atom-bomb. Nirvana is recognition of, realisation of, reliance
on, the Universal Self, Brahma, Param-Atma, which pervades
138 BEYOND DUALITY [SC, OF
and includes all selves ; and the consequent or rather simul-
taneous recognition of, reliance on, and steady pursuit of the
Dharma which is the ' active ' aspect of the ' re-cognition ',
viz., tfre constant endeavour to serve all, and help all to the
same realisation of Brahma and Dharma. Hence, * Be
Aj;ma and Dharma your Light and your Refuge; and
Naught-Else '.
CHAPTER VIII
BRAHMA 1 OR THE ABSOLUTE THE
DVANDV-ATITAM *
LKT us see now if this summation will give us all we
want, if it will withstand and resolve all doubts and
1 The- distinction between Brahma (ending with an unaccented short
' a '), and Brahma (ending with an accented long ' a ') should be borne
in mind. The former (in the neuter gender, nominative singular) is the
same as Param-Afroa, Supreme Universal Self (including Not-Self and
Negation). It is also often named Para-Brahma ; to make unmistakable
its distinction from Brahma ; and also to indicate that It is p a r a, Ulti-
mate, Highest, or rather Beyond compare, Transcendent. Brahma
(masculine, nominative singular) means the Individualised Ideating and
Regulating Mind, the Personal God, of a world, a globe, a solar system,
etc. Brahma is to Brahma as individual to Universal, particular to
General, singular to Total, part to Whole, whirlpool to Ocean ; one
focus, among pseudo-infinite foci, of space-filling Boundless Energy.
The un-inflected base of both words is Brahman. In Skt. script, Brahma
is SEP ; Brahma, HHT ; Brahman.
The word Brahma has other meanings also, (a) V&Ja, knowledge,
science, learning, (6) the class-caste of bra h man a- s, the clergy, the
learned profession, the men of learning, (c) the vital seed with potency
of infinite multiplication ; etc. There will be no occasion to use the word
in these senses in this work. They are dealt with in The Science of
Social Organization.
beyond the pairs, i.e. transcending the Relative.
i'., CH. VIIl] CHANGELESS CHANGE 139
queries and objections, even as the rod of power wielded
by Vasishtha swallowed up and made nought of all the
weapons of Vishvamittra. Let us test it with questions
the most wild and weird and fanciful. If it fails to
answer one, it fails to answer all, and we must seek again
for another summing up. 1
Aham Etat Na this log ion, in its entirety, re-
presents with the greatest accuracy that it is possible
for words to attain, the nature of the Absolute, the
Absolute which so many names and words endeavour
to describe the Unlimited; the Unconditioned; the
Transcendent ; Consciousness that includes Uncon-
sciousness ; the compactness, solidity, Plenum of
Cognition (knowledge or thought), of Being, and
1 The splendid chapter on ' The Perception of Reality ', pp. 283-324,
of William James 1 Principles of Psychology, II, may be read in this
connection ; and the claims made for the Logion, here, may be tested
by the requirements of " the perfect object of belief " laid down there.
The rest of the present book should be open to the same test, since the
writer has essayed to build it all upon the basis of the Logion, to
derive and deduce it all therefrom . Two quotations from James are
subjoined. " Our own reality, that sense of our own life, which we at
every moment possess, is the ultimate of ultimate* for our belief ";
p. 297. (Cf. pp. 22-23 supra \ Shankara, Shariraka Bhashya, on
which Vachaspati Mishra's Bhamafi is the most respected commentary,
says: *R?f f| 3ttc*ttsfelcr Sl&fcl J 3 TF9^ ?^> I - ' I : 'Everyone
believes I am ; none I am not '). At p. 317, James says : " The perfect
object of belief would be a God or Soul of the World, represented both
optimistically and moralistically if such a combination could be and
withal so definitely conceived as to show us why our phenomenal experi-
ences should be sent to us by Him in just the very way in which they
come ". In other words, the perfect object of belief should satisfy our
logical and intellectual requirements, our emotional cravings for happi-
ness achievable in morally virtuous ways, and our volitional urges for
activity which would not harm others.
140 UN-CONSCIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS [SC. OF
of Bliss; the Supreme; the Indescribable; the Un-
knowable. 1
This timeless thought, this spaceless idea, taken as
a whole, changelessly constitutes and is the nature of
Brahman. So taken, it is one thought, one knowledge, one
omnisciently rounded cognition of all 'this' that is possible
to know, one omnipotently fulfilled and surfeited desire
for all * this ', one omnipresently completed action of self-
assertion and 'thisMotherJ-denial, one single psychosis or
mood or act of Consciousness, in which there is no particular
content, but which yet contains the totality of all possible
particulars ; it is unbroken, pieceless ; there is no motion
in it, no space, no time, no change, no shifting, no un-
evenness, but all equality, an all- complete condition of
balance and repose, pure, stainless and formless, 8 We
can call it Unconsciousness also, the absence of thought
or cognition or desire or action or any mood at all. For
where the This is the whole of the Not-Self, and even
that is negated, the consciousness that is left may well be
called Unconsciousness, as that of the state of sound
slumber ; it is clearly not any particular consciousness,
such as that wherein the particularity of the This, as a
this, a that, defines both the subject Self and the object
Not-Self. And yet it includes the totality of all such
", TO
or
, f, STf, SIRT, sftf 1 ?, fttsrf, etc., are the descriptive
words used in
P., CH. VIH] ROTATING WHEEL OF LIFE 141
particular consciousnesses, for the Not-Self includes all
particular this-es.
Taken in two parts, the same thought gives: (1)
Aham Etat, I-This, i.e., I am this something other than I,
a piece of matter, a material or physical body ; and (2)
(Aham) Etaj-Na, (I am) not this thing which is other than
I, this piece of matter, this material or physical body. 1
Here, in these two sub-propositions, inseparable parts
and constituents of the one logion, we have, as we
shall see later in details, the whole process of S a rp s a r a.
S a m ? a r a means a process, (Skt. s r, to slide on, move on)
a movement, of rotation, for it is made up of the alterna-
tion of opposites : birth and death ; growth and decay ;
inbreathing and outbreathing ; waking and sleeping ;
acceptance and rejection ; greed and surfeit ; pursuit and
renunciation ; evolution and involution ; formation and
dissolution ; integration and disintegration ; differentiation
and re-identification ; emergence and re-mergence. Such is
the essence and the whole of the World -Process, at whatever
point of space or time we examine it, in whatever aspect
we look at it, animate or so-called inanimate, chemical,
or mechanical, physical, biological, psychological, or
sociological, in the birth and death of an insect and
also each rhythmic wing-beat of that insect, or the birth
and death of a solar system and also each vast cyclic
1 See foot-note 2, p. 84. The incessant L i I a, Pastime, of the Self
is the playful endeavour to define the undefinable It-Self ; * Am I this*
minteral ? *, ' Well, I am this mineral. But no, I am not this mineral.
And so with all possible pseudo-infinite kinds of minerals, vegetables,
animals, humans, sab-and-super-humans, and all other kinds of things
and beings.
142 GAIN-AND-PAIN HAND-IN-HAND [SC. OF
sweep iii space and time of that system. 1 Why the logion
has to be taken in parts and also as a whole, will appear
when we study further the nature of the * This.'
1 Indeed every science and every school of philosophy deals with one
important aspect of, and gives its own characteristic names to, the
alternately predominating terms of the ' pairs ' of the World-Process
Thus : physics speaks of action and reaction ; chemistry of composition
and decomposition ; biology of anabolism and katabolism ; physiology of
secretions and excretions ; medicine of growth and atrophy, health and
disease; mathematics of addition and subtraction, multiplication ami
division, prolongation and bisection, composition and resolution, the
static and the kinetic ; civics of competition and co-operation, or inch
vi dual ism and socialism ; law of right-and duty ; politics of an toe rat, v
and democracy ; poetry of optimism and pessimism, I' allegro and il
fienseroso-, history, of 'war' (between human beings), abnormality,
greater and greater differentiation, excess of love-hate born of primal
ab-err-ation (out of which proceeds the bulk of the multifarious events
and complications which make up the subject-matter of history), and of
'peace,' normality, greater and greater approach to the ' perfectness
and * completeness ' of homogeneity, serenity, restfulncss (which has no
history, for ' no news is good news ' ; since the arts of peace are mosth
arts of war with ' nature ' ; ' war ' and ' peace ' being used here
in the usual comparative sense, with a hint of the ultimate meta-
physical sense in which every sr.shti, every manifestation in the
World-Process, is by a disturbance of the primal equilibrium of tho
Three) ; psychology, of reminiscence and obliviscence, waking and sleep-
ing, aroused and focussed attention and dormant and diffused sub-con-
sciousness, m a n as- presentation and b u d d h i-memory ; philosophy, too,
of (progressive and regressive) change and absolutist changelessness ; and
finally, religion, of the worship of Shakti-Power and of Shiva-Peace. For
the ' pair ' names used by various Samskrt philosophies and sciences, see
The Science of Religion, or Sana f ana Vaidika phanna, pp. 64 67,
and The Science of Social Organisation, 'or The Laws of Manu,
I, 32-35. A work like Rogers Thesaurus shows how the whole
mental life of man, and all the corresponding vocabulary that he uses, is
made up of thousands upon thousands of such antithetic pairs.
The principle, law. or fact of Pvam-Pvam, ' Two-and-Two ' is bo
fundamental, so pervasive of all departments, all aspects, of Nature, is,
indeed, so essentially the very ' nature ' of Nature, that some more
examples of the more important ' pairs of opposites ' may not be un-
welcome to the student. They all arise, of course, from the Primal Op-
position of I ' and * Not- 1 '. This ' and ' Not-This '.
Temperamental types are, first and foremost, of which all others may
be regarded as varieties, feminine and masculine, prakrti-(s( ri) and
p u r u s h a ; then, tender-minded and tough-minded (William James) ;
romantics and classics (Ostwald) ; introverts and extroverts (Jung) ;
P., CH. VIIl] SWING OF OPPOSITES 143
This single logion thus includes within itself both
Changelessness and Change. It includes the fullness of
antar-mukha and bah ir- muk ha. in Skt., t.e., in-faced and out-
faced, in-turned and out-turned, introspective and extro-spective, (Yoga-
Vedanta) ; inhibitive and exhibitive, niroclha-chitta and v y u \ t h a-
na-chitta (ditto); precocious dement and hysteric (psycho-analysis) .
abstractionist artist and sympathetic artist (Warringer) ; Dionysius and
Apollo (Nietzsche) , sentimental and naive (Schiller) , passive voice and
active voice, in language (Finch) ; centripetal and centrifugal (Jung) ,
abstract and concrete ; con-centric and ec-centnc ; steady and unstable ,
equilibrated and unbalanced ; credulous and sceptical ; habit-ruled anil
inventive ; agricultural and nomadic ; peace-loving and warlike , realist
and nominalist (reconciled in the conceptualist) ; spiritualist-idealist and
materialist-realist (reconciled in the pantheist), j 5 ii n i - gnostic and
bhakta-pietist (reconciled in the ' practical mystic ') ; severe (style of
writing") and flowery ; synthetic and analytic , general and special ,
poetic and scientific ; causalistic (dwelling on past causes as explanatory)
;ind finalistic (emphasing the final cause or end, aim, future purpose) ,
determinist and vitalist, i e. t necessitarian or predestinarian and liber-
tarian, or fatalist and free-will-ist (reconciled in the ' illusionist ') r Will-
to-live (Freud, Jung) and will-to-power (Adler). It will be seen that the
two terms of each of these pairs often and readily change places, with
difference of situation and standpoint ; because non-Ego has borrowed
the qualities of the Ego, and vice versa , Man is part Woman, ;irul
Woman is part Man.
Fuller understanding of the cult of Shakti- Power (as distinguished
from the cult of Shiva-Peace) in India and Thibet, is likely to be helped
by psychoanalytic literature, and vice versa; (see, e.g., ch. xxxiii.
' Psycho-path ic Consequences '. of The Sexual Crisis, by Crete Meisel
Hess, translated by Eden and Cedar Paul ; pub. 1917, by the Critic and
Guide Company, New York). Cerebral energy and sex energy go
together ; as the two poles of the one magnet Energy, The complete ex-
haustion or suppression of either one of the two, means complete loss of
the other also ; whence the aphrodisiac quality of Ayur-v6dic and other
tonics for the cure of neurasthenia. But the two energies are as the
ends of a see-saw ; physically reproductive energy, (generated primarily
by food, which stands for primal Vital Energy, whence both sexual and
cerebral energies), has to be continually sublimated into mentally and
superphysically reproductive energy, by the person who would become
u r d h v a-r 6 1 a s yogi, * whose seminal energy always streams upwards ' .
In connectio'n with socialism, G. M. Hess notes the simultaneous rise
of two opposed pairs, " (1) the woman emancipated from sex, i.e..
the de-sexed, versus the woman emancipated jor sex i.e.. the very
highly sexed who yet wants to be free ; and (2) Ascetics versus Aesthetes."
(among men) . Amazon and hetaira were the correspondents in old Greece.
Renunciants of the world and pursuants of it. among men as well as
women, are to be found everywhere, throughout history* The many
144 INCLUSION OF ALL OPPOSITES [SC. OF
the Absolute-Consciousness or Un-Consciousness, from the
all-embracing timeless and spaceless standpoint of which,
the Self is seen to have eternally negated, abolished, an-
nihilated the Not-Self, in its totality, without remainder,
and so has left behind a pure strifelessness of complete
aspects of purga-Annapurna, destructive martial power and constructive
food-and-hfe-giving power, and of Kali-Gauri, ' Dark '-and-' White, 1
' Hate '-and-' Love,' blood-thirsty sadism and meek masochism, are
similar pairs of opposites. J. Langdon Davies ' A Short History of
Women is full of illustrations of how, age after age, country after country.
" Woman * has been alternately worshipped as supreme goddess. (Ishtar,
Astarte, seems to be only another form of the Skt. word stri, woman),
and maltreated as slave ; how every step forward in her emancipation has
been followed by a step backward in the shape of some corresponding
bond of disability. Such is the case with the freedom and the bondage
of men also. So, J. M. Robertson's A Short History of Christianity
shows, principally in the case of the Christian religion, of course, but
incidentally in that of others also, how growth and spread, and then
decline and decay, are marked throughout, period after period, phase
after phase, sect after sect, by one gain and one pain, one advantage
and one disadvantage. It comes as a great surprise, now and then, and
is very informing, to see how Christian priests and rulers made converts,
and suppressed pagans and heathens, and even mere dissidents belonging
to other sects of Christianity than their own, with the help of the
Bible as well as of ' fire and sword ', at one time, under the stress of one
kind of fanatical motive ; and, at another time, under the stress of
another kind of motive, political or economic or both, deliberately
avoided making converts and positively checked the spread of Christian-
ity. Similar has been the history of the spread of Aryan Vedism, and
of Islam and other religions. It is patent that the consequences of every
important scientific discovery and invention are similarly dual, good as
well as evil, because of the two-fold nature of the human being ; witness,
the two World Wars of the first half of the 20th Century A. C., and the
chain of their causes and consequences ; viz., awful misuse of science by
the greed, pride, lust, jealousy, mutual fear, and hate, of the leaders,
teachers, rulers, and propagandist-hypnotisers of the nations ; thence,
vast destruction of life and property and enormous *;z; -employment and
waste of labor ; and, again, more virulent In revanche. Emerson 's classical
1 Essay on Compensations ' is only a very brief study of the ' balancings '
of Nature. The vast and ever-growing literature of science fn every depart-
ment of it, including that of Sex, provides instances at every step. Many
very striking illustrations are to be found in H. G. Wells' The Science of
Life and Outline of History , of the Law of Polarity, Duality, Two-and-
Two, which pervades the World-Process and constitutes its very
heart-beat.
P., CH. VIIl] IM-POSITION AND DE-POSITION 145
balance, utmost repose, Perfect Peace. It also in-
cludes the pseudo-eternal, the pseudo-infinite, the
in-de-finite, and, technically, the illusive, mayavic,
endlessness of incessant identifications and separations,
on the smallest and the largest scales, of the Self
and the Not-Self ; each identification being immedi-
ately balanced up by a separation ; each separ-
ation at once neutralised by an identification ; sarga,
creation, and p r a 1 a y a, dissolution, following each
other in untiring and ceaseless motion of rotation,/
c h a k r a, ' cycling ', * circling ' ; in order to imitate
and show out in time and space, in an ever-futile
and ever-renewed endeavour, that which is complete,,
always and at once, in the Eternal and Infinite
Absolute.
Thus it comes about that the method of true
Vedanta, repeated super-im-position, ad hy-aropa, of
an attribute upon the Supreme (object of enquiry and
definition), and then de-position, refutation and strik-
ing away, a p a-v a d a, of it, till all particular attri-
butes have been struck away and the Supreme remains
defined as the t/n-de-^n-able that method is also the
method of all thought, (sup-position op-position
corn-position) and the method of the World -Process,
which is the embodiment of incessant endeavour to impose
material Attributes upon the Attributeless throughout
all time and space, endless at-tempt to de-fine Spirit in
terms of Matter. 1
1 See foot-note 2, on p. 84, supra.
10
146 ALL SPACE-TIME-MOTION within SELF [SC. OF
Aham Etat Na ' this transcendent s a m v i t ,
thought, consciousness, awareness, idea, thus, timelessly,
spacelessly, and changelessly, constitutes and is the
Sva-bhava, ' own-being ', Nature, of the Absolute,
which Nature and which Absolute i.e., which Absolute-
Nature is also, therefore, identical with the totality
of the World-Process; such totality being attained,
not by endless addition of parts and pieces of moving
things in time and space as outside of us ; but by grasp-
ing of the Whole of the Not-Self, with all time and
space and things moving therein, as within us ; so that
Past and Future, Behind and Before, collapse into Now-
and-Here, and all relative parts are summed up, by
abolition, in the Absolute Whole.
All Questions Answered
What merits and qualifications, or absence of merits
and qualifications, that may rightly be sought in and
required of the Absolute, without which the Absolute
would not be what its name implies, are missing from this ?
Is not that the Thought which is Independent of all Else ?
Does it not contain all in It-Self ? The Absolute is the Un-
conditioned. What condition limits this perfect cognition,
this Complete Idea, which is its own end and looks to no
end beyond It-Self, which is also its own means and seeks
no means out of It-Self for its realisation ? It is One single
act of Consciousness, which looks not before or after, to
P., CH. VIJl] ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED AT ONCE 147
past or future, but is complete, and complete now, in the
Eternal Moment, complete here, in the Infinite Point.
The ' I,' holding the whole of the ' Not-I ' before It-Self,
denies, in one single moment which includes all time, at
one single point which exhausts all space, in one
single act which sums up the whole of the World-
Process in It-Self, the whole of that ' Not-I ' ; denies that
It-Self is anything Other-than-I ; a mighty truism which
abolishes and yet covers all possible details of know-
ledge, for all possible ' not-I's ' that may be known,
are summed up in* the * Not-I ' so denied. All possi-
ble conditions of space, time, causation, d e s h a ,
k a 1 a , nimitta, are within this Absolute idea. All
contradictions are within it. 1 All the Relative is, and
all relatives are, within it. Yet it is not opposed to
them or outside of them ; for it indeed is the very
substratum and possibility of them ; nay, it is them,
in their entirety ; for, so taken all together, they
counter-balance and abolish each other wholly, and
leave behind only the Numberless Zero, out of which
all plus-and-minus numbers emerge, and into which
they merge back again. All divisions are within it ; yet
it is unbroken, un-divided, consistent, partless and
numberless, the beyond number, for the One and the
Many are both within it ; addition neutralising subtrac-
tion, subtraction nullifying addition, multiplication
counteracting division, and division completely balancing
I Tatparya-prakasha Tika
on Yoga-Vasishtha, VI, PGrvardha, xxxvi, 10.
148 ALL OPPOSITES, PARTS, within WHOLE [SC. OF
multiplication. All possible opposites that constitute
the factors of s a m s a r a, are present in it, in equation and
equilibration. It is the reconciliation of all opposites.
It is nir-gunam, attribute-less. It is guna-bhuk.
sa - g u n a m, taster, eater, container of all attributes, also.
Being is in it ; Nothing or Non-Being is in it too. It is
beyond Being and Nothing. It is Being ; it is Nothing ;
it is both ; it is neither. 1 Yet it is there, within us,
around us, unmistakable. It is the whole, and also the
constant process, of our daily life. " It moveth and it
moveth not, far is it, yet 'tis near ; it is within the heart
of all and yet apart from all."* It is the all. All is in it.
Assertion by it, and in it, gives existence to An-Atma,
the Not-Self : rejection and denial by it, and within it, im-
poses non-existence on that same An-A^ma. It sayeth :
I (am) This ; and the This, the Not-Self, is. It sayeth ;
(I this) 'Not-Self (am) not ; and the Not-Self is no more.
But it sayeth both ' these things in the same breath,
simultaneously. What is the result ? This Endless Pro-
cess that is ever coming out of nothing into being, and
vanishing out of being into nothing. We see it plainly,
yet may not describe it adequately. Truly indescribable,
a-n i r-v a c h a n I y a, has it been called ; as also has been
called the World-Process which is It. It is the Vacuum,
Rg-veda, X, cxxx, 1, 2.
; Hymn by Shankaracharya.
: \ Isha-Vpanishat,
P., CH. VIIl] PSEUDO- ETERNAL within ETERNAL 149
s h u n y a, of the s h u n y a-v a d I, 1 when Self and Not-
Self are regarded as having neutralised each other in
mutual Negation. It is the Plenum, gh an am, of the
g h a n a-v a d I,* which is ever full of both, in the Affirmation
that ever lies implicit and hidden in the heart of the
Negation. Two eternals are here in this Absolute, eternal
1 I ' and pseudo-eternal * Not-I,' eternal Being and
A few more scripture-texts to the same effect may be cited :
% 3?ra^ ; t$ f| sraffa sroifa 3lft^fo, ^ f|
; Chhandogya, 4-15-2
'The Self is known assamya<j-vama, because all contraries
inhere in It; It leads forth, It is the commander of, all contradictory
pairs '.
: 3JT3<Srf ; Bhagavafa, 4-9-16.
o/. CIY., 4-17-28.
1 Salutation, adoration, to the Supreme Self , Parama-Purusha, Sov-
ereign and Law-Giver of Nature, within Whom contrary energies,
s h a k t i-s, are revolving day-and-night, a (h a r)-n i s h a m ; Who spurs on
as well as reins in these opposite- leaping forces (with sure hand) '.
i o>. at. 2-6-10.
' Error, False Knowledge, and Wisdom, True Knowledgethe
Reservoir of both is the Supreme Purusha '.
The metaphysical reason Why, of the psycho-analyst's 1 ambi-
valence', heaven -and-hell, sub-conscious under-world of selfish hate
devilish thoughts, devils, and supra-conscious upper- world of unselfish
love, angelic thoughts, angels, is to be found here.
For further texts from scriptures of Vaujika pharma as well as
other religions, declaring the inherence of utterly antagonistic qualities
in the Supreme, the reader may look into The Essential Unity of All
Religions, index-references ' Duality ', ' Opposites ', ' Good ', ' Evil. 1
1 ' He who holds the doctrine that all is Nothing, a mere Vacuum,
S h u n y a, or that all arises from and goes back into Nothing, Emptiness/
' ' He who hold that all is one gh a n a, Density, Plenum.'
150 ALL RELATIVES within THE ABSOLUTE [SC. OF
pseudo-eternal Nothing; yet they do not limit or restrict
each other in any way, for there is only one eternal, and the
other eternal is pseudo, is not. Beyond space and time are
they yet, and therefore beyond limits ; and neither limits
the other, but rather each necessarily fits into the other,
or, yet rather, the 'other is entirely lost in the one. None
can take objection to the eternity of a pure Nothing
. , , . ^ . : within .
beside the eternity of pure Being; yet the t\, t^e
opposed and not identical ; and yet also both inhere in
and make up the Absolute. If we are inclined to feei
that * I ', holding up to itself and denying * Not-I ',
implies a duality, let us remember what * Not-I ' is,
essentially, and what this denial of it by ' I ' amounts
to. ' Not-I ' is the Negation of ' I,' and this denial
of it is the Negation of a negation of itself by the
' I '/ What objection can there be to the statement
that " I am not Not-I," " I am nothing else than I " ?
Is it not purely equivalent to the statement " I am only
I " ? And if so, where is duality in it ? A difficulty
seems to arise when we vaguely feel that pure ' Not-
I ' cannot be equivalent to the totality of all particular
' Not-I's '. This difficulty will be dealt with, later, in a
further endeavour to show that pure * Not-I ' is equivalent
to the totality of all particular ' Not-Ps '.
1 Compare the Saqiskrt expressions 3??3^ 3i*3^fTffi[ , ' other than
other/ i.e.. other than-not-I ; and 3RWfc^T^ 3Rffi[ , 'not other than
other, ' i.e., including the other or not-I within Itself. These expressions,
occur in the footnote on p. 125 supra. See also f. n.s on pp. 113.
114. 121.
P., CH. VIIl] MEANING OF * INDESCRIBABLE ' 151
The In-de-scrib-able
Such, then, is the Indescribable of which the Totality
of the World-Process is the Endless Description.
Exact, rigorous, scientific description here perforce
becomes a hymn, which may seem ' mystic ' to the
unscrutinising observer, yet is strictly accurate, ' rational ',
' practical ' also. The indescribability of the Absolute
Brahman is not the result of a powerlessness of thought,
but of thought's completion. It is indescribable
if we will use only one of the two sets of thought-
counters, terms of Being or terms of Nothing, such as
are used in dealing with things relative and limited ; but
it is fully describable if we will use both sets at once. 1
Many are the names of this Absolute, as said before.*
To fix the nomenclature and prevent confusion, the Eng-
lish term used to describe it in future in this work will
A But not in the way of Hegel, see ch. vi, supra. After
going through the considerations of this chapter, the reader
will have realised that Hegel should have said, not that
[Being is Nothing,' but that 'Being is not-Nothing,' or
' Being is no-Thing. 9 or * Being is no-particular-thing ' ; also
that, instead of saying this last, he should have said ' Ego
is not non-Ego ' ; and instead of that, that * 1 is not not-I " ;
and instead of that, again, he should have said that ' I am
not not-I v ; and, finally, he should have said that ' I am not
This/ i.e., ' I-This-Not. %
152 FROM PRATYAGATMI TO PARAMATMl [SC. OF
ordinarily be the word Absolute, and the Samskrt Brahman.
Para-Brahman is the same word as the last, with only the
intensive and eulogistic para, i.e., Supreme, added. One
other common and significant Sarpskrt name for it, which
should be specially noted here, is Param-Atma the
Supreme Atma, Supreme Self. In strictness, the
Absolute is as much the whole of Not-Self as Self;
but it is given the name of the ' Supreme Self 9 especially,
because the human jlva, as will be apparent from what
has been said in Chapters IV and V, arrives first at the
Pratyag-atma, 1 the * inward ' or * abstract ' and universal
Self ; and being established there, it then includes the
pseudo-universal Not-Self within itself ; and thus realises
ultimately its identity with the Absolute, which it then
calls the Param-Atma the Supreme Self, because it is
first seen, through and as the universal Self, though now
seen also to contain the Not- Self ; and because the Self is
the element, the factor, of Being in the triune Absolute.
flTOTF S*R:, Q^fct, 3Tfa ^ fife ^ I Bhagavafa, IV, xi.
\ Qg-veda.
See The Essential Unity of All Religions, pp. 139-140. etseq. t for
translation of the above, and many more such names, in Vaicjika pharma
as well as in other religions and languages ; also pp. 96, et seq., for equi-
valents in the scriptures of other religions, of the Logion ' I-This-Not.'
TO?R*?T f F^l WH I Sarva-sara Upanishaj.
P., CH. VIIl] SOME MORE ANCIENT TEXTS 153
"This udglta, this music-sound, the AUM, is
Supreme Brahman. In it are the Three, well indicated
by the three letters. Realising the secret hidden between
them, knowers of Brahman merge therein and become
free from rebirth. When with the lamp of the Atma, the
jiva beholds Brahman with all-intentness, Brahman,
the unborn, the time-less, the pure of all t a 1 1 v a s, then
he becometh free from all bonds. 1 "
3
5, ^ric^T ^r g^cl ^fi: i
, i, 7, 15
.4 few more Ancient Texts
NOTE. Some more texts from Vaidika as well as
Buddhist writings may be added here, in support of the
contents of this chapter.
Vedic Writers
, iv. 22
* He who has visioned That Which is Beyond Duality '
Which includes all Duals, he becomes free from all bonds and
fetters of the soul ; sane, equable, tranquil, in all conditions
of gain or of loss ; satisfied with and welcoming all that be-
falls ; devoid of all discontents and jealousies. 1
154 TEXTS FROM VEDIC WRITINGS [SC. OF
' Changeless, undecaying, unincreasing, is the state of
That Which Transcends Duality. To It go those who have
cast off pride and fear, clinging attachments, blinding infatuat-
ing desires ; who look equably on the primal Duals, Pleasure
and Pain ; and devote themselves constantly to meditation on
that ' Self Beyond Duality '.
intaff 33%^^;
si3fr: ; Manu, i. 26
* The Supreme (It-Self beyond all Pairs, becoming fo-
cussed in a Brahma, to create this our world) created Pleasure -
and- Pain (as Primal Pair), and invested all living things with
them : and (out of the experiencing, by humans, of these two,
in innumerable settings, forms, situations, the Brahma- Ruler
of our solar system, or this earth) wove the Scheme of Sin-
and-Merit and distinctions between Good-and-Evil deeds '.
tftaf,
;
' The True Knowledge (I-am-Not-This) and the False
Knowledge (I-am-This-body etc.) he who knows the Pair of
both these together ', he crosses beyond death, after having
tasted and experienced it in consequence of the False Know-
ledge ; and he tastes Immortality through the True Knowledge
(which includes the False Knowledge plus its simultaneous
repudiation).***
: I Jsha.
P., CH. VIIl] FROM BUDDHIST WRITINGS 155
1 It moveth, and It moveth Not ; 'Tis far, and yet 'Tis
near : It is within all This, It is without ; It is not large, nor
small ; not middling, yet the middle ; not -pervading, ail-
pervading ; with beginning, and beginningless also : not the
whoje, also the whole ; attributeless, and yet possessed of
every possible attribute. It is the Fourth which transcends
the Three, and yet not such (for It is immanent also in every-
thing which is within the Three) ; It is the Self, It is also the
Not-Self ; It is harsh (and all-destroying), It is gentle (all-
preserving) ; heroic, timid too ; great, small ; all-grasping, all-
abandoning ; flaming, and cool ; facing on all sides, and
facing none '.
Rhagavata, VI iv 32
* Is and is not both, and also all possible other con-
tradictory qualities abide within that ultimate Reality, which
Yoga and Sankhya endeavour to describe as equal with all
and greater than all, as friend of all and foe of all '.
There is another * mysterious ' aphorism in the Nyaya-
Sufras, which, like the one quoted on p. 125, supra, is pure
V6danta, taken by itself ; though, in the context, it is given
another meaning :
5T 53^ 9 * ^ arera;, q gv^Kig; , *?S-3ra<ft: efctqfc; iv. i. 48.
1 Not existent, nor non-existent, nor both, because it has
not the quality of either.*
Buddhist Writers
The famous Bhikkhu, Asanga, who spread Mahay ana
Buddhism in Thibet, writes in his Mahayana-sutra-Alan-
kara, V. 1.,
156 MUTUAL COPYING [SC. OF
1 Not being, nor non-being ; not thus, nor otherwise ; It
is not born, nor disminishes, nor decays in any way, nor
increases, nor can be made purer such is that Pure and
Perfect Parama-arjha, Highest object of understanding '.
Another very famous Bhikkhu, Nagarjuna, great chemist,
discoverer and inventor of metallic preparations, r a s a-s, for
medical purposes, as well as profound philosopher, writes in
his Madhyamika K3rika,
1 Not destructible, nor constructible, not slayable, nor
procreatable, riot transient, nor permanent, not One, nor Many,
not coming, nor departing such is It (the Self denying the
Not-Self). 1
Gauda-pada, the guru's guru of Shankaracharya, practical-
ly copies the above, in his Mandukya-K'arika, 32,
\
' No in-hibition, no ex-hibition, no bondage, no freedom,
no craving for deliverance,: no emancipateness such is the
state of Parama-artha, Highest Object (of knowledge).'
Mutual Copying
During the 1200 years of the Buddhist period ot Indian
history, followers of Gautama Buddha and followers of the
Vedas reproduced more or less the same old old teachings ;
varied the words , and often, ostensibly and ostentatiously,
(though, in private they may have spoken more sincerely and
made honest confessions even), told their respective disciples,
* What I am teaching is different from all other teachings and
quite original.' Human weakness to afford another illustra-
tion of the inseparable duality * high and noble thought ' and
4 mean and low motive ' side by side !
In Gauda-pada's Karika-s, the words Buddha, Sam buddha,
Pra-buddha, and Prati-buddha occur repeatedly. In two or
P., CH. VIIl] THE ' BEYOND-THE-TWO ' 157
three places Gautama Buddha is meant certainly ; in some
others, advanced souls, performing the functions of a Buddha,
seem to be referred to, generally (see The MahatmU Letters,
pp. 43-44, regarding " the last Khobilgan, . . . Sang-Ko-pa of
Kokonor, XIV century ") in the remainder, only ' wise know-
ers ' are meant. But Vaidika annotators, e.g., Shankaracharya,
explain all in the last sense only.
The Beyond-the-Two
As regards the inclusion of both Pratya-atma and Mula-
Prakrti in Param-atma, Vishnu Purana, says,
Glta says,
3ft, ftfe 3?ffl^t 3$ 3?fq,
^ : ; xiii, 19-22.
: ; xv, 16-17,
6 Prakrti and Purusha (Pratyag-atma), both, are latent in
Param-atma. The former is changeful ; the latter, changeless ;
the third, Param-atma, is the highest, including both and
distinguishable from each.'
A Sufi's Testimony to the Distinction! ess
Some beautiful lines by the famous Persian Sufi poet
and philosopher, Maulana Rumi, on the disappearance, during
slumber, of all time and space and motion, illustrate what has
been said on the subject, in the text above.
Shab, ze zindan, be-khabar zindaniyan ;
Shab, ze daulat, be-khabar sultaniyan ;
Nai gham o andesha-e sud o ziyari ;
Nai khayale in fulan o an fulari :
Hal-e a'rif in buwad be-khvftb ham.
' Oblivious is the prisoner of his chains ;
Oblivious in the monarch of his wealth ;
158 A SUFI'S TESTIMONY [SC. OF
The tradesman, of his losses and his gains ;
The sick man, of his torment of ill -health ;
And every one, of this, that, great and small ;
When they sleep as the dead, at dead of night.
The wise man who has seen the Self in all,
Oblivious is of all, e'en in daylight.'
CHAPTER IX
PVAM-DVAM ' THE RELATIVE
; K atha.
' The Self -born pierced the senses outwards ; therefore
the soul looketh outwards, not inwards. One resolute one,
here and there, turneth his vision inwards, desirous of im-
mortality, determined to achieve it, resolved to conquer
Death ; and he then beholdeth, and identifieth himself with,
Pratyag-Atma, the Deathless Inner Self.'
(A) PRATYAG-ATMA SELF
AHAM, S I, Self, in the great logion, is Pratyag-Atma.
It is the inward, abstract, universal Self or Spirit, eternal
1 55, ' two-and-two ', the paired, the double.
2 3?, a, is the first letter of the Sarpskrt alphabet, and ?, ha, the
last ; therefore the two together, between them, exhaust all the contents
of all possible ' experience,' which can be possibly expressed by all the
P., CH. IX] PRATYAG-ATMA 159
Subject, wherein all j I v a s, individual, particular,
discrete spirits, selves, or subjects, inhere as whirlpools
in the ocean, as whirl-winds in the air^ as vortices in
ether, as points in space. 1 It pervades them all, as the
genus pervades all individuals. It is all those indivi-
duals. The * appearance ' of separateness, individua-
tion, differentiation, is caused by matter, Mula-Prakrti,
as will appear later. In itself, it is the avyakta,
the unmanifest, unspecialised. unindividualised ; sheath-
ed in b u d d h i or m a h a t, universal mind, (corre-
sponding to the connotation of the plural and yet un-
breakably unitive, connective, collective * we ')> it becomes
letters of the alphabet, i.e., language, and which is all overshadowed
by the transiency, perish ingness, negation, that is indicated by the
JJ, rn. Therefore, 3?-^-^ are the appropriate vocal symbol of the I. which
is the only 'expcriencer, ' in whom alone all experience, with its negation, is.
?, ha, also stands for the a k 5s h a-{ a 1 1 v a, the substrate of sound, and
the first material manifestation and sheath or body of conscious life, in this
solar system at least, according to the Puranas ; and it therefore appro-
priately takes the place, in the name of the individual ego, which is
occupied by 3, u, in that of the Absolute Ego.
\
Nandik-eshvara-karika , 4 .
1 B h r a m a, b h r a n $ i, is one of the names for the * illusion,' the
' appearance without reality/ of the World-Process ; a sort of anagram
of ' Brahman ', and means ' turning round and round, 1 as the opposite
of the Moveless. This circling b h r a m a of the World-Process is visible
even to the physical eye, and requires no difficult thinking. The earth,
the moon, the planets, suns, stars, all revolve ; the seasons, the biological
functions, psychological, political, economical, social, historical pheno-
mena all observe cyclical periodicity, which takes on the form of spirals,
for reasons explained later on in the text. The Self ' makes-believe ' ;
It believes ' as if ' It is ' this, that, and tfce other not-Self ' ; and then,
discarding the mask, It comes back into It-Self.
160 BRAHMAN with ATTRIBUTES [SC. OF
the supra-conscious, out of which emerge and into which
merge back again, all v y a k t i s, individuals, manifest con-
sciousnesses^ particular minds, manas-es, (correspond-
ing to the singular and separative ' I '). It is the One,
eka, in a special degree. It is the essence, source, and
substratum of airsimiianty, sameness, continuity, unity,
all oneness. It is Ishvara in the abstract sense, the one
Ishvara of all particular Ishvaras their Self, as also the
Self, and as much so, of the j I v a s that have not yet
arrived at the state of Ishvara-hood. It is sometimes
called the Maya-s h a b a 1 a m Brahman, or S a-g u n a m
Brahman, Brahman conjoined with attributes, en-
wrapped in, coloured with, Maya. The Upanishats
mostly describe it, this Pratyag-Atma, and, leading the
enquirer to it, finally state that it is identical with
Brahman. Such aphoristic utterances, apparently, have
led to the confusion which seems to prevail at the present
day amongst the vedantis of the various schools, as
to the relation between Pratyag-Atma and Param-Atma,
or Brahman. The follou ing great words of the Upanishats
refer to the Pratyag-a^ma : " Unmoving, it outstrippeth
the wind ; the gods themselves may not attain to it ; it
goeth Beyond all limitations ; by knowledge of it, the
jlva attains to the (first) peace of unity; it is the white,
the bodiless, the pure, the Self-born, itself uncaused and
changeless, 1 and causing all things else and all their
1 A metaphysical axiom in Saipskrt, says, 3f
' That which undergoes no change has no cause,' or, more briefly, ' the
changeless is causeless '. Hume uses the words, " What is incorruptible
must be ungenerable ".
P., CH. IX] BRAHMAN without ATTRIBUTES 161
changes, smaller than the smallest, yet vaster than the
vastest ; it cannot be spoken of or seen or heard or
breathed, but itself speaks and sees and hears and
breathes ; it espouses the enquirer and appears within
him of its own law, and may not be taught by another ;
ever it hides in the cave of the heart ; it upholds the
three worlds ; it divides itself and appears in all these
endless forms, and yet is best described by saying, ' not
this/ ' not this V l And then comes the addition ;
" This Atma is the Brahman." * The meaning is that
the one so described is the Atma, but the same Atma
plus the description, viz., ' Not This ' that is to say, plus
the consciousness that " I am Not Other than I," which
consciousness is inseparable from, nay,,is the very being,
and the whole being, and the whole nature of the Self
is Brahman.
This Pratyag-atma 3 is the true nitya, the constant,
the fixed, the eternal, kutastha-nitya, the change-
lessly and movelessly permanent ; as opposed to
parinami-nitya, the changeiully persistent and
ever-lasting, the sempiternal. While the Absolute may
be said to be beyond Eternity as well as Time or
1 Vide Is ha. Kcna, and Kafha Upanishajs.
f Mandukya. 2.
* This word is not prominently used in the later works on V^an^a,
but is of frequent occurrence in Bhagavafa. e.g.. Ill, xxxv, 27; III.
xx vi, 27, etc. Yoga-Sufra, I, 29, appears to refer to the same principle
under the name of Pratyak-che(ana. Shankar-Scharya, in his
commentaries on Kena, iv. 6. Katha. i. 3, 11-12, and ii, 1. 1-2, on
Gauda-paga's Mandukya Karika. 65. and Brahmaputra, I. i. 1, men-
tions some other aspects, and even senses, of it. Words often put on
new meanings, as souls do new bodies.
11
162 SLUMBER KNOWS 'NO-THING' [SC. OF
rather to include them both as Eternity plus Time, seeing
that Eternity is opposed to Time, and the Absolute is not
opposed to anything else and outside of it, but contains
all opposites within itself the word Eternal, as opposed
to Temporal, may properly be assigned to the Pratyag-
3tma in its abstract aspect. As such it is ever complete
and undergoes no change, but is the substratum and
support of all changing things and of Time, even as an
actor of his theatrical attires.
For concrete illustration, take the case ofsushupti,
sound slumber, awaking from which a person says :
4 I slept well, I knew nothing.' Knowing Nothing,
i.e., the Not-Self, he was out of Time literally, he
was at complete rest in the Eternal, wherein he felt
perfect repose after the day's turn of fatiguing work ;
whereout he comes back again into Time and to the
cognition of some-things, when the restlessness ' of desire
for the experiences of samsara again overpowers him.
The further special meaning ofsushupti, the meaning
of sleep, as of death, may appear later. In the present
connection, it is enough to refer to this one aspect of it,
and to point out that the inner significance of the
expression, * the Self knows no-thing during s u s h u p t i,'
is that It, in that condition, positively knows what is
technically called No-Thing i.e., the Not-Self as a whole ;
1 The words of the Yo^a-system, for the repose and the restlessness
mentioned in the text, are fw^, n i r o <} h a, and Sgc^TH, vyu^hana,
restraint and ' uprising,' retirement and enterprise, inhibition and
exhibition, obliviscence and reminiscence, unmanifest consciousness or
sub-consciousness or dormant memory and manifest consciousness, rest
and work, fatigue and activity, sleep and wakefulness.
P., OH. IX] THREE NAMES OF SELF 163
for the potency, the necessity, of the Being of the Self
maintains constantly, before or within that Self, in one
unbroken act or fact of consciousness, this No-thing, i.e.,
No-particular-thing but mere general This-ness or pure
Not-Self. In other words, jiva, in the moment of
s u s h u p t i, passes almost entirely (since, strictly speaking,
it cannot pass quite entirely, for reasons that will appear
on studying the nature of the j I v a) out of the region of the
many experiences of particular not-selves, of successive
somethings ; passes into the other side, the other facet (and
yet not other but rather all-including aspect) of that region,
^12., into the region of the Single, underlying, ever-present,
One Experience, One Negating Consciousness, in the uni-
versal Self, of the pseudo- universal Not-Self. That ji va
does not pass entirely out of the state of awareness or * ex-
perience,' out of a consciousness which is its very nature
and essence, is the reason why the thread and continuity
of its identity reappears unbroken after the soundest
slumber.
As with reference to Time, the Self obtains the name
of the Eternal, N i t y a, coexistently present at every point
of Time for all the endlessly successive points of time
are coexistent to, and in, its eternal and universal all-
embracing consciousness, Now ; so, with reference to
Space, Its name isVi-bhu, pervasive-being, infinite,
unextended, or extensionless ; and, again with reference
to Motion, Its name is Sarva-Vyapi, all-permeating*
Omnipresent, the simultaneously present at every point
of space ; for all the countlessly coexistent points of Space
164 WHY MOVEMENT WITHIN BRAHMAN ? [SC. OF
are simultaneously present in that same consciousness,
in one point, Here. Introspection on the nature of sound
Sleep is useful for understanding the nature of Space as
of Time. In sound sleep we lose consciousness of Motion,
Time, Space, all. (Thus, a person falling sound asleep
when his train is standing at one station, and waking
up when it is again standing at another, cannot say
whether the train has moved at all and how long in time
and how far in space he has slept). In slumber we
'bathe ', are immersed in, Brahman, and are 4 renewed '.
With reference to Motion, its best name seems to
be Kuta-stha, rock-seated, or Avi-karl, or A par i-
n a m 1 , un-changing, the fixed, or, again, Antar-yami
the inner watcher or ruler. 1
1 As regards what has been said above about Atma plus ' Not This/
an earnest student and scholar wrestled with the idea for long. His
recurring difficulty was : " Why should not Brahman remain pure con-
sciousness ; why should there be in It the necessity of a denial of
another, and so movement ? ' ' Another might take the next step further
in the same direction and ask : ' ' Why should there be any Brahman at all ?
Why not let there be Nothing only ? " The case of Bhushundi questioning
Markandeya, in the Puranas, is similar. More preparation and practice
in meditation is needed to realise the simple truth. A study of the Time
and Space and Motion experiences, of dreams and reveries and flights of
even waking but rapt and absorbing imagination, is exceedingly helpful,
nay necessary ; and the absence of all such experiences in deep sleep
shonld also be carefully pondered on at the same time. Until the opposi-
tion between Time and Eternity is realised, the difficulty about move-
ment and change will continue. The Yoga-Vasistha stories are very
helpful in this reference. The whole point is that time and movement
are within, and negated by, the Eternity of the Moveless All-Consci-
ousness. The questions at the outset of this note may be more directly
dealt with, once again, thus : The reply is by a counter query What do
you understand by pure consciousness 1 Is not pu re consciousness =* the
Denial of impure consciousness ? How can you talk and think and know
at all of the pure, except by at the same time opposing it to the impure ?
And why do you use the word remain ? Is it not that you have at the
back of your mind the idea of Pure consciousness persisting from one
moment of time to another, and then to another, and so on endlessly ?
P., CH, VIl] WHY ANY BRAHMAN AT ALL? 165
Two Triads of Attributes
Out of the relation of the Self to the Not-Self, as
embodied in the logion, there arises a Triplicity of Attri-
butes in both. The triune nature of the Absolute the one
constant and timeless * moment ' thereof which contains
within it three ' incessant moments (movements, momen-
tums) of Time, viz., Past, Present and Future imposes
But successive moments of time cannot be distinguished in pure con-
sciousness. Successive 'impure consciousness,' i.e., particular, definite
experiences, sensations, thoughts, emotions, volitions, movements in
short, mark and make the successive moments of time and points of
space ; (the words to us may be added, but they are perfectly superfluous
and useless, for of to others in the strict sense we have no notion and
cannot speak). (Identifying ourselves with them by turns, we can see
that) one cycle of a conscious sun absorbed in the act of rolling may be
as one circuit of a race-course by a horse though in human count, the
former covers millions of years and billions of miles, and the latter a
single minute and about half a mile. Each is just one mind-filling
experience to its experiencer, the equivalent of, so to say, one moment of
time. The next run will make the next moment ; and so on. When
there are no such ' impure consciousnesses ' there can be no ' remaining '.
The next question, " Why not let there be Nothing ? " contains its own
answer. Surely let there be-Nothing, by all means. But Brahman is just
this be-nothing, be-no-thing, is-not-this. This is not quibbling. It is perfect-
ly serious. We cannot think or talk of nothing without also thinking and
talking of being ; and the two together, at once, are Brahman. If you
mean-by the words, " Why not let there be nothing? ", only the question
" Why are there any changing things at all ? ", then the whole preceding
text is an attempt to answer this very question. If you mean " Why is
there any unchanging thing?", then the answer, already given in the
text also, is, again, " A why is not possible to ask, and cannot be asked,
with regard to what is clearly recognised as really unchanging ".
1 Compare the verse quoted from Jntlna-garbha in the foot-note
at p. 21 of Shiva-Sutra-vimarshini, edited and published by
Mr. J. C. Chatterji, in 1911, for the Kashmir State Series of Texts.
166 TWO TRIADS OF ATTRIBUTES [SC. OF
severally on Self and Not-Self, three gunas, attributes,
functions, properties, or qualities. These three in-
Separable ' moments ' in the Absolute may be thus
distinguished : (a) The ' I ' holds the ' Not- 1 ' before
itself, and, so facing it, denies it, i.e., cognises
Not-Self's non-entity, its nothingness. This face-to-
face-ness constitutes the moment of Cognition, including
sub-divisions to appear later. (6) This cognidon of
Not-Self by Self is due to, and is of the nature of, a
self-definition by Self, a constant definition of its own
nature to It-Self as being actually different from all
Not-Self, from all things other than the pure Self, which
things might possibly be regarded as identical with itself .
Implied therefore in this Self-consciousness is the Action
of an ' identification ' and then a * separation ' of Self
with and from Not-Self. This is the moment of Action,
having its subdivisions also, (c) The third moment is
that which intervenes between the other two, the inner
condition, so to say (for there is no real distinction of
inner and outer here), of the 'I,' its tendency or
Desire, between the holding of the * Not-l ' before itself,
" I invoke, in the heart, the Goddess Consciousness, of supreme
perfections, whose manifest body is the triple succession, and whose inner
Nature or Spirit is successionlessness." This work and some others
belonging to the Kashmir School of Shaivism, which have become avail-
able since the publication of the first edition of this work and of the first
volume of the Pranava-vada, show that that school has many ideas in
common with these. A learned friend has referred roe to the definition
of Shakti, which appears in the commentary by Yoga-raja on Abhinava-
gupta's Paramartha-sttra, kSrika 4, as ftsfaSqpTTCW $fct: which, if
the context allows, and if it is a definition, can only mean that " the
nature of Shakti is to operate as negation"; see ch. xi infra and
Pranava-vada, I, 53, eto.
P., CH. IX] CHIT-SAD-INANDA 167
on the one hand, and its movement into or out of
it, on the other. This third moment, of Desire, also
has subdivisions, to be developed later. These three
moments manifest in the individual jiva as jnana,
kriya, and ichchha respectively. 1 They will be
treated of in detail further on. Here it is enough to
say that these three moments in the Absolute Brahman
appear in the universal Pratyag-atma as the three attri-
butes of C h i t, Sat, and A n a n d a, respectively, which
are the seeds, principia, possibilities and potencies, univer-
sal and abstract aspects, of what in the individual jiva
manifest as jnana, kriya and ichchha/ i.e., cognition,
action, desire. Sat, ' being', is in a special sense and degree,
1 ?R, ?^5T, f*fc1T. The English words ' know, con. ken, cognise,'
4 create ' and ' wish ' are apparently derived from (probably etymo-
logically the same) Samskrt roots, viz., ' jSa, 1 ' kr, 1 and ' ish,' respectively.
3 In current V^^n^a works, the meaning, as generally accepted, of
sat, chit, and a n a n d a, is explained to be being, consciousness, and bliss
respectively. This is not incorrect in itself, but is misleading and vague ;
it certainly does not bring out the characteristic significance of each.
The correspondence between the two triplets, mentioned here, which at
the time this was written was only a guess based upon indications in
current Samskrt works, was afterwards amply confirmed by the Pra-
nava-vada. Also, subsequently, I have found a definite statement of it,
though indirectly, in the Bhumika or Introduction to Guptavaji Tlka on
' Maha-Sarasvatf, Maha-Kali, Maha-Lakshml
are only other names for (the powers of) cognition, desire, and action/
And again :
"O Chandl! that art Maha-Sarasva^I or Chi(, Maha-Lakshmi or
Sat, and Maha-Kall or A n a n <} a, we con-template thec in the lotus ot
the heart, in order to achieve knowledge of Thy essential being."
168 JSANA-KRIYA-ICHCHHA |_SC. OF
the principle in consciousness of act-ua\ (self-) assert-ion
and (other-) denial, ac/-ual identification and separation,
making and unmaking ; it corresponds to k r i y a, which
alone gives or takes away existence, i.e., manifest and
particularised being. Chit, * consciousness f in its special
aspect of cognition, is the mere holding before oneself of a
not-self and ignoring it, denying it, knowing it to be not ; it
corresponds to j fi ana, which enables a thing to be known
as existent or non-existent, true or false. A nantfa, the
inner condition of the Self between cognition and action,
is that principle of consciousness which connects the
other two, is the basis of desire, which leads the j I va
from knowledge into action. That which in the Uni-
versal, All-embracing, Omnipotent is A nan da, ' bliss,'
the fulfilment, or rather fulfilled condition, of all desires
and wants, is the Eternal want of want, that appears
in the individual as joy after the fulfilment of a particular
want, craving, desire, ichchha. What, in the Infinite,
All-judging, Omniscient, is Chit, consciousness, the ful-
filled conditidn of all-knowing, is the denial of the
possibility of all not-selves, is the simultaneous positing
and denying of all else than Self; that appears in the
limited jiva as partial knowledge of thing after thing,
half-truth, the error or a-vidy a of assertion, and then the
remaining, nish6dha-sh6sha, critical, ' well-judged,'
vidya, supplementary and completing truth, of the
denial of things, ' all is vanity,' * vortices of nothing,'
' much ado about nothing '. Finally, that which in the
Motionless and Changeless, Omnipresent, is Perfect and
P., CH. IX] ALL SIX INSEPARABLE 169
Peaceful Being, Sat, Being everywhere, that same appe-
ars, in the finite person, as effort to be, to exist, in place
after place, time after time, i.e., is action, followed by rest.
(Be-ing is to ' be-tn-Self * ; existence is ' ow-istence ').
It should be borne in mind that these three aspects,
sat, chit, and a n a n d a, are not prior in time to k r i y a,
j n a n a, and i c h c h h a ; nor are they in any sense external
causes or creators of the latter. They are co-eval with
each other in their universal and unmanifested aspect,
and are identical with the second triplet, which is only
their particular and manifested aspect ; even as univer-
sal and particular, abstract and concrete, substance and
attribute, plural and singular, whole and parts, We and
I, may be said to be identical. The two cannot be
separated, but only distinguished, as before pointed out.
Pratyag-atma cannot and does not exist without and apart
from jivas, and jlvas cannot and do not exist with-
out and apart from Pratyag-atma. But while in Pratyag-
atma, consciousness is Self -Consciousness, which, against
the foil of the Not-Self, is Self-action or Self-assertion,
Self-knowledge, and Self-desire or Self-enjoyment, all in
one, all evenly balanced and equal, none greater than any
other, all merging into each ; so that Pratyag-atma is
often exclusively referred to in the Upanishats by only
one of the three attributes, as only a n a n d a, or c h i t,
or sat or ananda-ghana, chid-ghana, sad-ghana ;
jlva is a compound of jnana, ichchha and kriya,
which, by the necessary fact of their confinement to parti-
culars, realise their inseparable contemporaneousness
170 UNIVERSAL SELF, IMPERSONAL [SC. OF
only in an endless succession ; so that they rotate one
after the other, two being always latent, but never
absent, while one is patent. '
How and why three moments come to be distin-
guishable in what is partless, will appear on fully con-
sidering the nature of the second factor in the triune
Absolute. 2
Such then is Sat-Chid-Ananda, Saguna-Brah-
man, having three attributes as constituent principles
of its being, three potentialities which are necessarily
present in it with reference to the necessary nature
of its two co-factors in the Absolute. But we see
clearly all the while that it is not personal, not indi-
vidual, not some one that is separate from other ones t
not the single ruler of any one particular kosmic system ;
but is Universal Self which is the very substratum of, and
is immanent in, all particular Ishvaras, 3 i.e., jivas risen
to be rulers of world-systems and all jivas therein;
(Chiefs of hosts of Planetary spirits).
1 But, by predominance of one function extending over a long period
in a lifetime, individual jivas become distinguished, despite the perpetual
rotation of all three, as * men of knowledge,' ' men of action,' and * men
of desire,' or as men of undifferentiated, unskilled, little-skilled work.
J See the next chapter.
3 The technical definition in Samskrt is, ^Q^ ^^JH 3F*W\ 3T $n
fffiSf: f^{:, " He who can do, or not do, or do otherwise as he pleases ".
Etymologlcally. $$& ^ (Vtt* " ne who rules, is master, the
sovereign ". In the full sense, only the Universal Self is Ishvara.
In the comparative sense, infinite numbers of jivas, at an infinite
number of stages and grades, are Isbvaras, .ords, masters. A ' lord of
men, ' a chief, a king, is a ft^Cj n a r-e" s h v a r a. Technically, the three
Rulers, or, rather, the Triple or Tri-Une Ruler, of a solar system.
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, are Ishvaras regarded as Three ; they are
Param-eshvara regarded as a Tri-Unity.
P., CH. IX] WHY TRIPLICITY OF ATTRIBUTES 171
The triplicity of attributes in the Self is a reflection
of the triuneness of the Absolute: Self, \vith reference
to the Self, whose very being is constant awareness of
It-self, is Chit; with reference to the Not-Self, which
it posits, therefore creates, i.e., gives to it the appearance
of existence, and denies, therefore destroys, becomes Sat;
with reference to the Negation, ceasing from the restless
turmoil of the Many, it shows forth A n a n d a and the
bliss of peace.
Worship of Pratyag-atma
This Pratyag-atma is in a sense capable of being
worshipped. Worship and devotion may be directed to
it in the shape of constant study and re-cognition of its
nature ; of constant desire to see and feel, by universal
love, its presence everywhere, and as all selves, and in all
not-selves ; of constant endeavour to realise such presence
by acts of compassion and helpfulness and service. Such
is the worship of the Atma by the ji va who, having
finished (for that cycle) his journey on the path of
pravrtti, pursuit, marked out by the first half of the
logion, is now treading (for that cycle) the return-path
of n i v r 1 1 i, renunciation, which is laid down by the
second half of that same logion. To such a j I v a, the
special Ishvara of his own particular world-system is the
higher individuality of which his own individuality is, in
one respect, an integral part ; is the father of his material
sheaths; and, in another aspect, the high ideal of
172 WORSHIPS OF VARIOUS ASPECTS [SC. OF
renunciation and self-sacrifice whom he is lovingly and
devotedly to serve and closely to imitate, as far as may
be, within his own infinitesimal sphere.
Students who cannot yet quite clearly grasp the
nature of the relation between Self and Not-Self in its
purity and nakedness, cannot yet clearly distinguish
Pratyag-atma from its veil of Mula-prakrti, but, still,
more or less vaguely, realise the universality of Self,
who are in short at the stage of Vishisht-advaita
such students worship the particular Ishvara of their
world-system in a vaguely universalised aspect. Still
other j I v a s, at the stage of Dvaita and of the theory
of creation, worship only and wholly the individual ruler
of their world-system, or a subordinate deity, regarding
him or her or It as the extra-cosmical creator, final cause
and explanation, of the universe.
Absolute Brahman transcends and includes all wor-
ship.
CHAPTER X
PVAM-DVAM THE RELATIVE (CONTINUED)
(B) MULA-PRAKRTI OR MATTER NOT-SELF
WE have dealt with the first factor of the triune Absolute,
namely the Self. The second factor is the Not-Self. Its
many names, each significant of a special aspect, are :
P., CH. X] MULA-PRAKRTI 173
An-atma, Not-Self: A-chit, the non-conscious; An-rta f
the false ; Jacja, the non-intelligent, non-sentient, inert ;
Nana, the Many; Jn6ya, the knowable : Vishaya, the
Object ; Bh&Ja-mula, root of separateness ; Mula-prakrti,
Root-Nature ; Pradhana, the chief, the root-base, of all
the elements, wherein they all ' subsist ' ; Matra, the
measurer, the measure-setter, the delimiter, the de-fin-ing
or finitising principle, the mother, Matter ; and A-vyakta,
the Unmanifest. 1 Mula-prakrti and Pradhana are specially
prominent in Sankhya, and of frequent occurrence else-
where too.
arfet, 3^3, sre, *r*r ite, f^nsR, Jfcij?, *5-5Tfft,
. Each name is significant of an important aspect.
The word m a t r a has, regrettably, dropped out of current use
somehow ; it deserves restoration, being etymologically the same as the
well known English word ' matter' It is used in this sense in the
Bhagavad-Gita. *?T^I^5Tf^3, W^M 1, ^fan*pf:^T: ii, 14. The
word avyakta is not specific to the Not-Self, it should be noted ; it is used
for Pratyagatma, or abstract Self, also for Not-Self, and also for
mahat-buddhi of Sankhya, the ' great ' diffused Intelligence, uni-
versal or sub-supra-Conscious Mind, unindividualised by a sheath and un-
particularised or unfocussed by an act of attention. Mahan-atma also
occurs, now and then, in the sense of Self plus this Universal Mind.
Sometimes a k a s h a is also called avyakta, as a substitute for root-
matter or 'This,' which is the indispensable second basis of universal
mind, the first being Self.
The etymology of Pra-krti, is thus explained in ()cvi-Bhaga-
% IX. i ;
5156
" The first letter indicates greatness ; the next two, activity, creation,
emanation ; also, the three letters respectively mean the three g u n a s,
ttva. rajas, and tamas."
174 NOT-SELF ALL-WAYS CONTRARY OF SELF [SC. OF
This Not-Self is by the Necessity of Negation of it
by Self, which Necessity is the very Nature of the Absolute
the opposite of Self, in every possible respect and
aspect ; as is indicated in the fact that some of its most
characteristic names are made up by prefixing a negative
to the names of Self. Because of this fact, as the
essential characteristic of Self is Unity, the very
essence of Not-Self is Manyness, separateness ; and as
the marks of Self are Universality and unlimited-
ness, so the marks of the Not-Self are limitedness,
Particularity, ever-specifiedness. As Fichte has said } :
" All reality is in consciousness, and of this reality that
part is to be ascribed to the Non-Ego which is not to be
ascribed to the Ego, and vice versa . . . The Non-Ego
is what the Ego is not, and vice versa." Or, better, as
reported by Schwegler 2 : "Whatever belongs to the
Ego, the counterpart of that must, by virtue of simple
contraposition, belong to the Non-Ego."
This characteristic consequence of the opposition
of Self and the Not-Self should be carefully considered,
together with other aspects of the Nature of the Absolute.
Solution of the various difficulties, alluded to before
from time to time, hinges upon it.
Because nothing particular can be said of Ego,
therefore everything particular, all possible particulars,
must be assigned to Non-Ego. But yet again, lest
the totality of these particulars should become a fact
1 The Science of Knowledge, p. 83 (Kroeger's English translation).
* History of Philosophy, p. 246.
P., CH. X] IN ALL WAYS 175
different from the Non-Ego instead of identical with it,
even as positive is different from negative, these parti-
culars, are paired off into opposites. These opposites,
again, because particular and definite, are more than pre-
sence and absence ; both factors have the appearance of
presence, positiveness, as debt and loan, as pleasure and
pain. 1 The pain of a debt is as much a positive burden
on the consciousness of the debtor, as the pleasure of a
loan is a weight on that of the creditor.
When we are dealing with the ultimate universal
and pseudo-universal, viz., Self and Not-Self, Being and
Nothing, then even presence and absence are adequately
opposed ; it is enough to prefix a negative particle to
Self and Being. But when we are in the region of parti-
culars, this is not so ; positive cold, in order to be
neutralised, must be opposed by positive heat, and not
merely by no-cold : a positive debt is not sufficiently set
off and balanced by a no-debt, but only by an asset ; plus
is not nullified by zero, but by minus ; a colour is not
abolished by no-colour, but by another equally positive
complementary colour. It should also be borne in mind,
in this connection, that the positiveness of particulars,
the reality of concrete things, is, after all, not so very
definite and indefeasible as it seems at first sight, but on
the contrary, a very elusive and illusive fact. In the
ultimate analysis its whole essence is found to be nothing
else than consciousness ; the more consciousness we put
1 See Yoga-bha$hya, ii, 5 ; " A - v i <J y a is not merely non-knowledge
but ' opposite ' or wrong knowledge, as a-m i f r a. non-friend, un-friend ly,
is not merely ' absence of friend ' but a positive foe ".
176 MIND, THE ONLY MAKER-UNMAKER [SC. OF
into a thing, the more real it becomes, and vice versa.
That a house, a garden, an institution, falls out of repair,
or order, and gradually disappears, loses its reality, its
existence, if it is neglected by the proprietor or manager ;
that is to say, if the latter withdraws his consciousness
from it ; is only an illustration of this on the physical
plane. The essential fact is always the same, conscious-
ness upholding itself as well as its object, though the
details differ ; thus, to maintain its objects on the physical
plane, consciousness employs the ba h ish-kara na, the
4 outer,' or physical, senses, organs, instruments and means,
for repairs, etc. ; while on the mental plane it employs the
1 a n t a h-k a r a n a,' the ' inner instrument '. As in the case
of the individual and his house, on the small scale, so, on
the large scale, when Brahma * falls asleep ' and with-
draws his consciousness from it, his brahm-anda, 1
world-egg or system, disappears. We should remember
here that the arrangement of materials which is the house,,
the garden, etc., is, for all purposes, the creation joi the
maker's individual consciousness, and that the other
arrangements of material which he uses as senses, means
and instruments, etc., are also evolved and created by his
life or consciousness ; (that functions create organs, and
not organs, functions, is becoming quite a commonplace
1 Like so many other facts and laws stated by Saniskrt metaphysic,
these 'world-eggs/ or 'eggs of Brahman, the Immense, the Infinite/
are literal facts, which need no abstruse science or elaborate thinking
to perceive, bat can be veritably seen by physical eyes. Earth
Moon, Sun, all the ' orbs * and ' globes ' of Heaven, i.e.. the Immense
Firmament, Boundless Space, are quite obviously ' eggs ' of the Infinite.
P., CH. X] ALL CREATION IS PRO-CREATION 177
of at least one school of advanced science now) ; l and
finally that that material, ultimately' the Not-Self,
over which he as an individual has no power, is the
creation of, the result of positing or affirmation by, the
Universal Consciousness, the Self. If these facts are
duly taken into account, then the presence of all possible
kinds of mutually-destructive pairs of * reals,' * concretes/
* particulars,' within, and as making up the total of,
Not-Self, equivalent to Nothing or Non-being in its
totality, will not appear altogether incomprehensible.
1 Compare Chhandogycr, VIII, xii, 5, "The Self ideating or ima-
gining itself as hearing, seeing, etc., became the ear, the eye, etc."
All creation is a continuation of self. No creation is
possible without identification of the producer with the pro-
duct, (comparatively). Every creation is, more or less, a pro-
creation, /or/fc-emanation, (as of a child). It is positing of
the creat-uTe, directly or indirectly, as * I-(am )-this '. ' My '
is the (comparatively) indirect form of positing ; it is only a
lesser degree of ' I '. All dissolution is, similarly, denying
that identity;. ' I-not-this ', or 'not-mine-this '. However
distant from me, and apparently indifferent to me, yet still
the stars, the planets, the earth's poles, the earth's centre are
all ' I ' or ' my ', or ' not so * ; though very vaguely. Whatever
is of * interest ' to ' me ', is related to me in terms of love or
hate ; therefore, in terms of ' I * and ' mine ', a h a m - J a and
m a m a - 1 a, or of ' not I ' and ' not mine ', n a - a h a m and
n a - m a m a. The Veda hymns, known ascha-ma-ka and
n a-m a-k a, vividly express this idea : ' The Sun is Mine, the
Moon is Mine, Indra is Mine, the Wind is Mine', etc., and. again,
* Not Mine, Not Mine '. To bring home, the fact that mine *
is only a continuation of ' I ', consider this ; a person ' creates *
a house for him -self; he feels and wishes, ' a h a m grhl
s y a m ', ' May I become a house-man,' (hus-band, house-
owner, house-dweller) ; this feeling, this consciousness, con-
verts a r a m b h a into adhy-a-ropa or adhy-asa;
changes creation into self-transformation (which includes
12
178 SPIRIT'S PLASTIC STRESS SHAPES ALL [SC. OF
Countless Paired Positives
The negative Not-Self thus appears as a mass of
countless paired positives, d v a m-d v a m, ' two-and-
two '. These appear as particular and positive when we
view each of the two factors of every pair separately,
from the standpoint of the limited. Yet by the fact of their
being paired into opposites, by the affirmation and nega-
tion contained in the Absolute, they aie always destroying
each other by internecine controversy, and thereby always
leaving intact and maintaining the negativity of the
negative, considered from the standpoint of totality. In
p a r i - n a m a) ; it transforms the ' potter ' into the theatrical
actor *. All authors, more or less, put themselves into their
creations ; authors of even science-books ; much more of
novels and dramas. Literal and visible proof, of owner and
house being identical, are shell-fish, molluscs. In later,
higher, forms of life, this house becomes more and more, and
then quite, separate, physically only. The cause, the force,
which creates a book, a machine, a state, an empire, is the
ideation- and -will, of some individual self, ' May I be an
author, a machine- inventor, a statesman, an emperor '.
Birds fly with wings, fishes swim with fins and tails, which
are (part of) them-selves ; men fly and swim with aeroplanes
and ships and submarines which are theirs. Yoga-siddhas may
re-place the machines which are their s t by organs which
would be (parts of their bodies) them-selves ; as telescopes and
microscopes may be replaced by keener eyes and clairvoyance.
The evolutionist (Lamarckian) view, that ' functions create
organs ' ; the poet's conviction, that ' the Spirit's plastic
stress ' shapes all things ; are only corollaries of the above.
Incidentally, for a very entertaining exposition and defence of
Lamarckism or neo- Lamarck ism as against Darwinism or
nee-Darwinism, the reader may see Bernard Shaw's Preface
to ' Back to Methuselah \
P., CH. X] NO ARBITRARINESS 179
other words, the Whole is the summation, and at the
same time the opposite, the abolition and annihilation,
of all its parts ; as zero is the summation as well as the
abolition of all possible plus-figures and all possible
minus-figures. This paired feature of Mula-prakrti is
only a reproduction, a reflection, therein, of the essential
constitution of the Absolute, the opposition of the primal
pair of .Pratyag-atma and Mula-prakrti, which is neces-
sarily the supreme archetype and paradigm for all con-
stitutions within it ; there being nothing outside it to
borrow from. This being clearly grasped, the famous quill
of Krug (p. 73 supra) may now be deduced easily. Where
everything must be, the quill also may be, nay, shall be ;
and not only the quill, but the agencies that destroy the
quill. All arbitrariness, all caprice, is done away with by
this one statement. Arbitrariness means nothing more
nor less than this : one thing more than another, one
thing rather than another, without due reason. Where all
are, equally, and none more than another ; and, further,
where everything is with its opposite, with its negation,
with its is not, also, at the same time ; there, there is
no arbitrariness, no caprice. If we ask, why this particular
thing at this particular point of space and time, the reply
is : In the first place, the particular space and time of
the question have no particularity apart from the parti-
cular thing which defines them ; so that the particular
thing and the particular time and space are inseparable,
are even indistinguishable, almost; are one thing in fact,
and not three. In the second place, all possible orders
180 VARIATIONS Within THE UNVARYING [SC. OF
or arrangements, all possible particulars, cannot actually
be at the same point of space and time, to one limited
j I va ; and yet they are all there also, to him, one actually
and the rest potentially, to satisfy even such a demand.
And they are there also actually, turn by turn, to that
same jlva. On the other hand, all possible orders and (
arrangements and things are actually present also at any
one point of space and time ; but they are so only when we
take into consideration all possible constitutions and kinds
of j I v a s, and see that any one order corresponds to one
particular kind of j I v a. Thus, the extreme demand that
"everything must be everywhere and always" 1 actually,.
I Bhagavfftct.
' The seeker for the Truth of Self, should find out That which is
every-where and al-ways. He should do so by a n u-a y a and v i-a t i-r e k a ;
by discriminating between what persists and what changes ' ; i.e , by
the method of agreements and differences, or concomitant variations.
See pp, 22-23 supra.
I Yoga-Vastshtha. So far as potential presence
is concerned, a biological illustration is supplied by the doctrine of bio-
phores, each containing an infinite number of ids or determinants,
developing and manifesting by turns. Compare also Leibnitz, Monado-
logy : "He who sees all, could read in each what is happening every-
where;" and again, "each monad (jiva) is a living mirror of all
the universe." Jevons, in The Principles of Science, describes how
each atom is a register of all the happenings of all the universe. " What
a wonderful revelation to the historian and artist it would be ... if
he could stand in a modern gallery and see artists of all ages and gener-
ations at work, or talk to writers, dramatists, and philosophers of all
times. Yet this is what the scientist possesses in living intensely active
Nature" ; The Origin and Nature of Life (Home University Library),
pp. 71-72. The word ' gene ' is now in vogue in place of Weismann's
*id\ but seems to mean much the same. It maybe noted here that
such views as Bergson's, of Creative Evolution, and Morgan's, of
Emergent Evolution, all assume change, of one sort or another, and da
not explain it ; while the view, expounded here, explains all possible
forms of Change as being always within the Changeless.
P., CH. X] SEMPITERNITY OF THE CHANGING 181
as it of course is potentially, is also justified and satisfied.
Such is the reconciliation of the opposites involved in
S a m s a r a, and explanation of its endless flux, its a n a d I-
pra-vaha, beginningless flow, as well as its ever-com-
pleteness and rock-like fixity, k u t a s t h a-t a. The
significance of this will appear more and more as we
proceed ; for while all laws exist and operate and inter-
penetrate simultaneously and pervasively, they cannot,
owing to the limitations of speech, be described simul-
taneously. " Speech proceeds only in succession," ] like
all other activities of the World- Process.
We see, then, that the negative Not-Self is a mass
of positive particulars, and that, at the same time, be-
cause of its being in inseparable connection with
Self, it necessarily takes on the appearance of the
characteristics of Self, and becomes pseudo-eternal,
pseudo-infinite, pseudo-unlimited, so that matter appears
indestructible through all its changes. 2
Yoga-Vitsishtha.
wr i
4 No actions, nobody-forms resulting from those actions, no elements,
are ever completely annihilated. Because they are connected with,
because they are 'ideated by, the Sovereign Lord of All, the Eternal Self,
therefore are they also pseudo-eternal, ever -lasting, sempiternal, seeming
to disappear, but remaining in potentio in that Ideator, and therefore
also re-appearing, endlessly '.
A* Sufi mystic, Jill, in his work The Perfect Man, expresses the
same fact : 'The existence of God is eternal, and the knowledge (of God)
182 NOTHING IS EVER WHOLLY LOST [SC. OF
Though essentially a-sat, Nothing, Mula-prakrti is
yet pseudo-Being, i.e., existent, sat; though many, and
particular, and changing, yet it has a pseudo-oneness, and
a pseudo-universality, and a pseudo-changelessness (of
laws, all-ways) ; though finite, it is also pseudo-inf)nite ;
though dying, it is also pseudo-eternal. It is pseudo-
eternal, because it is, not only dying, but, ever dying ; ever,
.in order to keep pace, as it must, because of in-
separability from it, with the eternal Self. It is pseudo-
infinite, because it is, not only finite, but, everywhere
finite ; everywhere, in order to avoid separation from that
same in-finite and omni-present Self from which it may
never be separated. The same is the case with all the
other characteristics.
Why the Logion must be taken in Parts, as well
as in the Whole
Let us now pass on to the question why the Legion-
has to be taken in parts, as well as in the whole.
By opposition to the Unity and unlimitedness of
Self, Not-Self is Many and limited. Under these
necessary conditions, Self denies Not-Self. But while
pure Non-Being, i.e., the whole of Not-Self, in
being denied, and in order to be effectively denied,
becomes simultaneously affirmed, and so becomes a
is eternal, and the object of knowledge is inseparable from the knowledge,
therefore it is also eternal " ; quoted in translation, by R. A. Nicholson,
Studies in Islamic Mysticism, p. 128.
P., CH. X] TWO PARTS IN THE LOGION 183
multitude of passing and mutually-destructive particulars,
any one of these particulars, by the very reason of its
being limited, being defined in time and space and motion,
is, from its own standpoint, incapable of simultaneous
affirmation and denial. Pure Non-Being may, without
objection, be affirmed and denied in the same breath ; but
a particular limited something, which is a-sat and yet sap,
which is sad-asat, existent and non-existent, cannot be
both * simultaneously.' And yet it must be both, for
Absolute-Consciousness contains both the affirmation and
the negation of it. Reconciliation o/ these contradictory
necessities, these two antinomies of the reason, the
solution of this apparently insuperable logical difficulty,
is found in the ' successive ' existence and non-existence
of each limited something. Hence the logion appears^
(and this appearing is the World- Proces-sion) , as divided
"in two parts, first ' I (am) this,' and secondly, ' (I) this
(am) not ' ; first affirmation, then negation ; first the
positing by Self of its identity with a possible and
therefore actual ' this/ a piece of matter, and then the
denying of that identity with an impossible and therefore
perishing 'this' or piece of matter; first birth, then
death. This * succession ' is m i t h ya , mythical, a mere
illusion, 1 an appearance ; because it is true only from the
1 That the World-Process is an illusion, is, like so many other ' meta-
physical ' laws and facts, visible even to the ' physical ' eyes. That
which passes, which is at one moment, and is not the next how else can
it be named and described than as illusion ? Does it not violate all the so-
called laws of thought ? Science has been described as organised know-
ledge. But the World-Process is an Organised Process ; Nature has an
Organic Unity, is a parartha sanghata, in the words of SSn-
khva, ' an organisation for the sake of the Self '. Therefore sciences are
184 ILLUSION OF SUCCESSION. ANALOGY [SC. OF
standpoint of the limited. Pass into the non-limitation
of the Self, by turning the consciousness inwards, when-
ever and wherever you like, and thence into the fullness
of the Absolute, and there is no succession. The whole
of the limited, past, present, and future, is in that un-con-
ditioned thought at once. The ever-complete and perfect
balance of the Absolute appears, to the limited, and from
its own standpoint, as the successive and continuous
balanc-*tt of things in S a m s a r a. And this continuity of
succession, this perpetual resurrection and rebirth, repeat-
ed life and death, this recurrence of existence and non-
existence, this Becoming between Being and Nothing, this
only descriptions of portions or aspects of the World-Process as so or-
ganised. And Metaphysic, the Chief of Sciences, which co-ordinates all
the others, is therefore only an accurate description of the essential
facts of the World-Process as completely organised and co-ordinated by
the Unity of the Self. Hence the Chhftndogya Up.. (6-1-6), ' Knowledge
of the One is knowledge of the Whole ' ; (see also Yoga Sutra, iv. 31).
There. is no other mystery than the Mystery of the One Self. The simplest,
the nearest, and dearest, is the truest and deepest ; as here, so everywhere ;
as now, so ever ; as thus, so al-ways ; as the atom, so the solar system ; as
the microcosm, so the macrocosm, There is no break in the Law of Analogy,
i.e., of Continuity, i.e., of Unity, any when and anywhere and anyway.
Once this is realised, all facts, happenings, laws, so-called errors and so-
called truths, i.e. part-truths, all become sg//-evident, (vda, ' seen* ).
matters for mere description. There is nowhere any originality or
invention. That they are not self-evident to everyone always, as the ele-
mentary truths of mathematics are what does this mean ? There are
primitive or savage races which cannot count beyond the five of the
fingers of one hand. Are the self-evident facts of higher arithmetic, or
even the 'elementary ones of geometry or dynamics, etc., self-evident to
them ? The self-evident facts of higher mathematics are not self-evident
even to the vast majority of the highly civilised. Yet who that has once
arrived at and seen them, after the necessary labour of intellect, can
question their self-evidence ? It is the same with all sciences (and all
scientific ideas, even those now ' exploded,' each in its own time and place
and appropriate aspect) ; and much more so, if possible (as it is not) with
Metaphysic. Even what is called, and rightly called, error, is self-
evident, in the sense that it is Not-Self-evident, as evident as the Not-Self.
Numberings, postulates, the directions of force, are all ' arbitrary '
assumptions even in exact mathematics.
P., CH. X] NO INSOLUBLE SURDS 185
equivocation between affirmation and denial, may itself
be regarded as a third part in the logion ; viz., ' I am
not this, but am this other this ; and not this either, but
this other this,' and so on, endlessly completing the
triplicity which is found every-where because of the
triuneness of the Absolute.
Safeguard against Surds
But lest this appearance of succession should seem to
introduce something new and foreign to the S v a -b h a v a,
the Nature, of the Absolute, the safeguard, already men-
tioned in other words, is provided. While each one of a
pair of opposites is succeeded in a later time in the same
place (or space) by the other, it is also coexisted with in
the same time in another place by that other ; for the
endless limited positives that make up the pseudo-un-
limited negativity or non-being of the Not-Self, in order
to do so, must be constantly paired as opposites, so that
they always counterbalance each other, and so actually
leave behind a cipher only, whenever the totality of them
may be summed up. Thus a constant balance too
appears in the World -Process, wherein the many
coexist with, as well as succeed, each other. The truth
of this may be verified in the daily life of human beings
as well as the life of kosmic systems. Life to one means
and necessarily implies death to another simultaneously,
at the same time, and to that one itself successively, i.e.,
at a later time. Pleasure to one is pain to another, and,
186 TOTALITY OF -PLUS-ES AND MINUS-ES [SC. OF
again, to that one, in the same way. So with the
rise and decay of the natural kingdoms of minerals,
vegetables, animals, men, dvas, etc., of human king-
doms or nations, of planets and of solar systems, at
the expense and the gain, respectively, of one another.
That this must be so, is due to the fact that the Totality
of paired and opposed Matter (positive and negative) is
fixed, once for all, as the Whole, by that unconditioned
thought or idea which is the Absolute, and cannot newly
be added to or taken away from ; that Totality being, as
said before, always Zero, equal plus and minus. Matter
is thus uncreatable as well as indestructible. 1 Therefore
1 There are some very interesting and suggestive statements in the
Pranava Vada in the connection , thus. Matter has two kinds, 4 ' light
atoms " and " dark atoms " ; as S h ak ti-energy is " affirmative " and
negative ".In modern scientific writings too there have been speculations
about ' ' well-atoms ' ' and ' ' sink-atoms " , " light suns ' ' and ' ' dark
suns V. " vortex-rings " gyrating or spirating in opposite directions, which,
when they meet, neutralise each other, and are, to all appearance,
annihilated, but still persist in potency, in possibility (and therefore
actuality) of revival, as blja or samskara.
A friend asked, "With what negative is this positive book to be
paired off ? " The reply was, " With the things, wind and weather, heat
and dust of summer, damp of rains, worms of many kinds, which are slowly
disintegrating it, and will complete its ' non-existence ' some day. The
book has been formed out of elemental material, and has left blanks,
emptinesses, in various places, which are constantly calling for a
restoration of the status quo. Vast buildings have been raised in all
countries, in the passing centuries ; walls and towers, as in Babel, temples
and pyramids, as in Egypt, India, Mexico, Peru ; more recently, thousand,
twelve hundred, thirteen hundred feet high sky-scrapers, like Woolworth
and Empire Buildings in New York and Lenin Memorial in Moscow. All
have been built with materials taken from various places. The Positive
hollows left in those spots are the negative opposites of the positive build-
ings, which are the negative opposites of the positive hollows, in turn.
The forces which raised the buildings are perpetually resisted by the forces
which are craving to restore the status quo. to lead back from vai-
s h a m y a, heterogeneity, to s a ra y a, sameness, homogeneity. These
latter began imperceptible wearing down of the buildings simultaneously
with their erection ; and have completed, or will complete someday, the
P., CH. X] WHY RECURRENT CYCLES? 187
what appears as an increase in one place and moment, is
necessarily due to a decrease in another place and moment,
and vice versa. This will appear further in treating of
the Law of Action and Reaction.
In these facts, coexistent and successsive, combined
with the infinity and eternity of Self against which
they are outlined, and which they constantly endeavour
to reflect and reproduce in themselves we find embodied
and manifested, continuous movement of all and
everything, from place to place and moment to moment ;
and also recurring return of all and everything,
though only in appearance and not in actuality, to the
same position (comparatively, never exactly,), in coex-
istent surroundings amidst its companion-objects, and
also to the same position in the successive order and
arrangement of those objects.
This thought, if properly followed out, explains the
Why of Recurring Cycles, in individual as well as kosmic
life ; why history is always repeating itself, in the
main outlines ; why every j Iva and all j ivas must pass
though all experiences and the same experiences, turn
after turn ; how every finite thing, even a passing thought,
an atom vibration, the most evanescent phenomenon, is
pseudo-infinite and pseudo-eternal, i.e., endless and
everlasting ; why there must be an endlessness of veils
upon veils, planes within planes, senses besides senses,
and elements after elements ; why nothing and no one,
levelling down of them and the filling up of the hollows. It is a common-
place of geology that mountains turn into ocean-beds and vice versa, by
slow erosions and fillings and liftings, or sudden cataclysms.
188 THREE MO(VE)MENTS IN ABSOLUTE [sc. OF
atom-dust or solar system, is on the whole, really more
important than any other ; why and how the immortality
of Self is assured to all ; and how all are yet always
graded to each other and bound up, in ever higher and
higher range of Unity, in (every consciousness, because
all consciousnesses are equally contained in) the One
Consciousness. 1
The considerations which explain why the logion
is taken in two, or rather, three parts, also explain
how three moments are distinguishable in the Absolute.
Indeed, the difference between the three parts and the
three moments is only the difference between the third
person, on the one hand, and the first and second, on
the other; between looking at Self and Not-Self as
Being and Nothing, or as * I * and ' This '. The simul-
taneity of past, present, and future ; tbe compression
into one point, of behind, here, and before ; the absence of
all movement ; these are congenial to the Whole, but are
not possible to and in the part and the particular. The
positing, the sup-posing (while denying), of Not-Self
by Self, the op-posing (while affirming) of Not-
Self by Self ; the corn-posing of (while negating all
connection between) the two by means of Negation ;
1 In Puranic pictography, this fact of the ' end-less continuous
spiral* of the World-Process is described as the 'coils of An-anta-
S h 6 s h a ', the ' ever-unfinished, ever-remaining ' Serpent of a thousand
heads who bears a world on each head See the diagram on p. 432
of The Secret Doctrine, III. Shesha means 'that which always
remains behind as Residuum ' ; it also means, in Nvaya, * the means
which look to an end as their residue ' . The word is derived from s h i s h,
' to leave a residue '; s h e s h a t i, leaves a remainder ' ; shishyate,
1 is left behind as remnant '.
P., CH. X] SYNCHRONY OF THE SUCCESSIVE 189
these three facts, while simultaneous in the Absolute,
where the whole Self deals with the whole Not-Self,
cannot be such where a particular, limited, not-self or
4 this ' is concerned. They can appear only in succession :
first sup-posing, positing, moment of jnana; then op-
posing (after identifying), moment of kriya;and,
intervening between them, or, indeed, enveloping them
both and holding them together, corn-posing, the
moment of ichchha. Yet, even while so succeeding
one another, these moments cannot, as pointed out in the
previous chapter, altogether lose the contemporaneous-
ness which belongs to them by right of being in the time-
less and successionless Absolute. This synchronous-
ness appears in the fact that when anyone comes into the*
foreground, the other two remain in the background, and
that these also come forward, turn by turn ; in short,
they succeed, not only one another but, each other, and
in incessant rotation. 1
Thus is the World -Process one vast device, or,
rather, one vast mass of countless devices, for perpetual
reconciling of the opposed necessities of the reason.
Another of the more important consequences issuing
from the essential nature, the limitedness, the parti-
cularity and manyness, of Mula-prakrti, may also be
noted.
The distinctions between thought and thing, ideal
and real, abstract and concrete, are all immediately due
1 These facts illustrate the metaphysical ' why ' of the continuum of
consciousness, in one aspect, the theory of which has been propounded
by James Ward, Stout, and others in the West.
190 THING & THOUGHT, RE-AL & IDEA-L [SC. OF
to this characteristic, and are in reality nothing more
than the distinction between whole and part. From the
standpoint of the whole, the Absolute, or even from* that
of the universal Pratyag-atma, all possible varieties of
Not-Self are * ideal/ are ' thought,' are parts of the
* abstract ' Not-Self, are thought, by the Self, as negated ;
but each such variety, from its own standpoint, to itself,
is * real,' is * thing,' is ' concrete '. The present, to that
which is present, is the re-al, while the past and the
future are idea-1 ; but to the eternal, wherein past, present,
and future are all present, all is ideal, or all real (the
name does not matter). Because all is present in the
Pratyag-atma, therefore memory of the past and expecta-
tion of the future become possible in the jiv-atma 1
All this will be discussed more fully, later on, in connec-
tion with the nature of * cognition '.
The Special Attributes of Not-Self
We may now consider those special attributes of
Not-Self which stand out with prominence in
Sarnskrt books. They are sattva, rajas, and
t a m a s. They correspond exactly to the three attributes
of Pratyag-atma, and arise also from the same com-
pelling necessity of the constitution, Sva-bhava,
1 The Universal Mind of Pratyag-atma is the sub-supra-conscious-
ness of j i v a m , the basis of its memory and expectation, of
c h i 1 1 a m, the individual mind, which indeed is the individual j i va (or
jiva-atom)* Chittam is that which ch|aya|i. remembers,
looks before and after, is conscious, is aware; it is the limited form
of the unlimited C h i t or C h i \ i.
P., CH. X] GUNA-KARMA-DRAVYA 191
essential Nature, of the Absolute, as described by the
Logion. It is unnecessary to repeat here all that has been
said in this reference before. It will be enough to say
that : (a) as Sat is the principle of ' action ' or activity in
Self, so rajas is the corresponding principle in Not-
Self, which makes it capable of being acted on, makes it
amenable and responsive to all activity, gives it the tend-
ency to active movement, * mobility or motility J ; (6) as
Chit is the principle of ' cognition ' in the One, so s a 1 1 v a
is the principle of ' cognisability ' in the Many ; (c) as
A n a n d a is the principle of ' desire ' in the Enjoyer, the
Subject, so t a m a s is the principle of * desirability ' in
the enjoyed, the Object. They correspond, respectively,
to what appears in the particular, i.e., manifest matter,
as karma, movement, g u n a, quality, d r a v y a, sub-
stance ' ; and, again, to the Etat, the Aham, and the Na,
respectively, in the Absolute.*
fiCTTfc W,
I Pevi-Bhagavata, III. vii, 26
*The ordinary, current, and, so far, almost exclusively accepted
meaning, as goodness-pafcsjon-inertia, respectively, of sat t va-rajas-
tamas, is different; as in the case of Sat-Chi t,-Anan4a, being-
consciousness-bliss, also Glta, ch. xviii, deals largely with these three
attributes, of Mula-prakrti : and they are also defined in Sankhya-
K&rika. At first sight]" there seems to be no connection between
the meanings assigned here to the two triplets of qualities be-
longing to Self and Not-Self, and the meaning assigned In current
Samskrt works. When the ordinary v < d a n t i wishes to describe the
opposites of Sat-Cbi(J-Anan<la, which he vaguely ascribes to Brahma
(without making any definite distinction between Brahma and Pratyag-
atma), he speaks of anr, ta-ja<}a-duhkh a, untrue-unconscious-
pain, as characterising what he. again vaguely, calls SamsSra,
the World-Process, or Pr a- pa Etch a, the '.quintuplicate ' or the
'tangled'. This is, for instance, the phraseology employed in
These current acceptations are by no means
192 SATTVA-RAJAS-TAMAS [SC. OF
Such are the three gunas, rajas, sattva and
tarn as, or, in the order in which they are usually
mentioned, sattva, rajas, and tamas the great
attributes of Mulaprakrti. This usual order has been
changed above, in order to make it correspond with
the order in which the attributes of Pratyag-atma,-
S a t-C h i d- A n a n d a, are usually spoken of ; i.e., in
order to bring out the reflection-and-alliance, the corres-
pondence, between Sat and r a j a s or action-less Being
and alterable movement ; C h i t and sattva, or cogni-
tionless Consciousness and cognisable quality ; and finally
A n a n d a and tamas, or desire-less Bliss and desir-
able substantiality. With regard to these it has been
incorrect, but they are not the ' whole truth ' . They are correct only
if regarded as expressing one, and a comparatively less important, aspect
or portion of the full significance. A little reflection will show how
they naturally arise out of, and are connected with, the interpretations
given here. The following statement of the various senses, in which
each of these six words is used in Samskrt, will help to show how thought
has passed from one shade of meaning to another :
flc^ sat, is being, existent, real, true, good, also asserted or
asser table, actual ,
, c h i t, is living, conscious, aware, cognisant ,
, ana nda, is peace, feeling of satisfaction, joy, bliss,
pleasure, realisation of desire ;
, sattva, is being, existence, truth, goodness, harmony, living
being, energy, illuminating power, vital power ;
rajas, is that which colours, dust, stain, blood, passion,
restlessness, activity.
, tamas, is darkness, dullness, inertia, confusion, chaos, pain,
faintness, sleep.
Sattva. rajas, tamas, have often latterly been translated as
rhythm,' mobility, inertia. But these words indicate only one sub-aspect
of each. Sattvika rajas is rhythm, i.e., harmonious or uniform repeti-
tion, and the imposition, thereby, of one-ness on a series of many move-
ments. Rajasa rajas is mobility proper. Tamasa rajas is inertia, persistent
clinging to a state of relative rest or motion.
P., CM. X] THE 3 ALL-PERVADING INSEPARABLES 193
said that ' there is no individual or thing, either on earth
here or in heaven amongst the gods, which is free from
(i.e. devoid of) any one of these three qualities "J Their
inseparability from each other and from Not-Self, and
therefore from Self, follows naturally from all that has
gone before. Devl-Bhagavata * states clearly and shows
how, while one quality may, nay must, predominate in a
certain individual, the others are never, and can never
be, entirely absent* even in the case of the high gods,
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva ; though they are ordinarily
regarded as wholly rajasa, sattvika, and, tamasa,
respectively.
The manifestations and results, but not the causes, of
these g u n a s , are spoken of largely in the current Samskrf
works. Nor are any clear and detailed statements as to
the correspondences between these triplets of attributes,
S a t-C h i d-A n a n d a, r a j a s-s a 1 1 v a-t a m a s, k r i y &-
j n an a-ich ch h a, and ka r ma-gun a-dravy a, avail-
able in the extant books. Of course, it is enough, in a
certain sense, to group the contents of the World-
Process under the categories of s a 1 1 v a, r a j a s, and
t a m a s, because, at present, the Mula-prakrti or material
aspect is the most prominent in human life ; but full
understanding of their significance necessarily requires
knowledge of the other triplets.
This Not-Self, the second of the three ultimates of
the World-Process, is not capable of receiving worship,
1 G*f0, xvii, 40.
* III, vi, vii, viii, ix.
13
194 SCIENCE SERVES LIFE; NOT LIFE, SCIENCE [SC. OF
or of being made the basis of religious practice, except
in the way of study, as the object. But even so, be-
cause it is one of the ultimates, it will necessarily lead,
in the end, to a recognition of the other two, and so to
Peace. To single-minded, disinterested, and unselfish
scientists and students of the world of material objects,
may be applied the words of Krshna : * They also, ever
desirous of the good of all creatures, come ultimately to
Me, the Self.' ' Witness the instinctive, recognition of Self,
in these statements by a man of science : " Science serves
life, not life science " ; " The world is an idea, or a sum
of ideas " ; " The actual problem . . . consists not in ex-
plaining psychical by physical phenemena, but rather in
reducing to its psychical elements physical, like all other
psychical, phenomena." 2 It is not surprising that such
recognition should often be imperfect and often distorted,
as witness this other statement of the same man of
science : " . . . this monistic conception . . . alone holds
strictly to experience . . . and necessarily sets aside the
ancient doctrine ... of the wandering of the soul." 3
1 Gift*, xii, 4.
2 Max Verworn, General Physiology, translated into English by
F. S. Lee (1899), pp. 2, 37, 38. '
Monism includes Pluralism
3 Ibid., p. 39. Study of physical science, pursued sufficiently
far, no doubt leads to monism also ; to the realisation that the World-
Process is something continuous, unbroken : that the individual is not
independent, but part of one continuous whole. But the a d v a i t a
thus reached is generally an external or objective a d v a i t a, so to say,
one in terms of the third person. Further reflection converts it into
internal and subjective ; transforms it into terms of the first person. To
reach a d v a i t a is to attain moksha ; and vichara, viveka, think-
ing, is the way : pondering, reflecting, discriminating, meditating,
dwelling on any one of the main aspects or factors of the universe,
1 consciousness ' (see pp. 26-29, supra), or ' will,' ' cause, 1 ' matter,' or
P., CH, X] THE SELF-LESS SEEKER FINDS THE SELF 195
It is much to have advanced to a recognition of Self ;
correction of inaccurate and hasty deductions, is possible
only on due study of the nature of that Self. That study
will show how there may be, or rather must be, one Self
and monism or rather non-dualism, and yet also many
selves and " wanderings of souls," at the same time.
'force,' etc. In fact, the seeker may start anywhere, but if he only
goes on to the end, he will surely arrive at the same goal. But, it should
be noted and remembered, the intellectual attitude of a b h y as a, perse-
verant search, must be accompanied by the ethical attitude of v a i r a g y a,
passionate rejection of the selfishness of the personal or individual self ;
otherwise the Universal Self will remain hidden ; for the plain reason
that the eye, which is turned to the finite by selfish desire, cannot see
that which is in the opposite direction, the Infinite, to which the eye can
be turned only by tm-selfish desire ; but when it is so turned, it simply
cannot help seeing It.
NOTE. Such statements as those of Max Verworn,
quoted above, have become increasingly common in the half-
century that has elapsed since the appearance of that sci-
entist's book. Modern physicists have begun to say, ' Matter
is only Force,' ' Atoms are vortices of Nothing ; ' which is,
perhaps, going to the other extreme. (See leading scientists'
opinions collected in The Essential Unity of All Religions;
pp. 19-26). Mula-Prakrti (Matter, Matra) and Daivi-
Prakrti (Force, S h a k J i, from d i v, to shine, to play) are
not separable; but they are distinguishable. The Secret
Doctrine says, " Fohat digs holes in Space " ; which holes are
atoms. The idea seems to be that if you regard Space as a
Plenum, then atoms are to be understood or imagined as
holes in it (like air-bubbles in a solid lump of glass), by
contrast of ' finite individual ' against * In-finite Universal ".
Per contra, if you look upon Space as a Vacuum, then atoms
have to be thought of as * solid particles ', for the same
contrast. A brief look into the 500-pages of minute-print
Indices (Secret Doctrine, Vol.^ VI of the Adyar edition), at
references to ' Atom ', ' Fohat ', ' Force ', ' Space ', * Plenum ',
4 Vacuum ', will convince the reader of the overwhelming
character of the very numerous and very different statements
regarding each. After a second and a third systematic
196 METAPHYS1C ILLUMINATES [SC. OF
reading of the whole work to say nothing of the much more
frequent consultation of particular pages the mind remains
puzzled and bewildered. At the same time, it also remains
convinced that the book is not to be lightly put aside, in
hopeless revolt against its ' mysteriousness ', but must be
pondered over, again and again. Almost every statement,
however dis-jointed-seeming, has some important significance ;
and each successive pondering brings some new and interesting
aspect into view. Anyway, even one reading of the great work,
and of The Mahatma Letters, leaves the reader in possession
of a positive general idea, though cloudy and tantalising, of the
law of cyclic and spiral in volution -evolution, as governing the
Whole World-Process, and the subsidiary law of septenates,
as governing at least the solar sytem to which our earth and
our race belong. It also gives a very encouraging glimpse
into, and throws light on, the meaning of Puranic allegories.
If a few metaphysical principles are drawn from Ve-
danta, and are firmly held and carefully and diligently applied,
they may prove a very helpful clue in the labyrinthine
jungle of facts and ' fancies ' (allegories), set out in the books.
Their complexity only copies the actual World-Process ;
and the. books themselves insist, over and over again, on the
necessity of studying Brahma- vidya, Atma- vidya, Vedanta, in
order to simplify the complexity, and to understand the
Nature, of the World -Process, and also to practise successfully,
the wholesome individual and social life of 'Dharma, which
brings happiness here and hereafter/ Study of metaphysic is
strongly advised in The Mahatma Letters, pp. 250, 262.
The reader is invited to peruse carefully, pp. 79-83 of the
Proem (in Vol. I, of The Secret Doctrine, Adyar edition), at
this stage, and consider whether the preceding chapters of the
present work help to make any clearer, the connotations of,
and the relations between, (1) " Para-brahman, the One
Reality, the Absolute, . . . Absolute Consciousness, . . .
Absolute Negation, ... (2) Spirit (or Consciousness) and
Matter, Subject and Object. ... (3) Pre-cosmic Ideation . . .
fons et origo of (3 -a) Force and of all Individual Consci-
ousness ; . . . (3-b) Pre-cosmic Root-substance (Mula-prakrji),
. . . that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the
objective planes of Nature ; " (p. 80). On p. 81, it is said ;
P., CH. X] THE SECRET DOCTRINE 197
" Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual Con-
sciousness, so pre-Cosmic substance is the substratum of
Matter in the various grades of its differentiation. . . . Apart
from Cosmic substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest
as individual Consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle
that consciousness wells up as ' I am I ', a physical basis
being necessary to focus a Ray of the Universal Mind. . . .
The Manifested Universe, therefore, is pervaded by Duality,
which is, as it were, the very essence of its EX-istence as
* Manifestation '. But just as the opposite poles of Subject
and Object, Spirit and Matter, are but aspects of the One
Unity in which they are synthesised, so, in the Manifested
Universe, there is that which links Spirit to Matter, Subject
to Object.^ This something is called by Occultists, (4) Fohat.
It is the ' bridge ' by which the (4-a) Ideas existing in the (5)
Divine ^Thought are impressed on Cosmic substance as the
' Laws of Nature '. Fohat is thus the (6) Dynamic Energy
of Cosmic Ideation, or, regarded from the other side, it is the
(7) intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation,
the ' Thought Divine '. . . . Fohat, in its various manifesta-
tions, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the
(8) animating principle " [ p r a n. a in one aspect, j i v a in
another ] " electrifying every atom into life." (The figures
1 to 8, in brackets, have been put in by the present writer,
in the above excerpt.)
* Absolute Negation ', ' Absolute Consciousness ', ' I am
I ', the Why and the How of the origin of Duality in
or from the ' One Unity ' ; the metaphysical crux of such
a Relation between Subject and Object, Spirit and Matter,
as will not falsify the Absoluteness of the Absolute Nega-
tion ; all these may perhaps be better understood if
' Absolute Negation * and 'I am I ' are interpreted in the
light of 'I-am-(Not Not)-I '. ^So, too, Fohat, as 'that
which links Spirit to Matter/ as * dynamic energy of Cosmic
Ideation,' as ' intelligent Medium, the Thought Divine 'and
as * the animating principle ' all this may, perhaps, be
better understood, if ' I-(am)-Not-Not-I ' is seen as the
Supreme Logion (or Logos), Maha-vaky a, Great Word,
the whole of Cosmic Ideation, Thought Divine, and the One
Supreme Law of Nature ; if it is seen as the Necessity of the
198 WHY AND HOW OF FOHAT [SC. OF
whirling wheeling round and round each other, in mutual suc-
cession, of ' Am ' and c Am-Not ', as ' Dynamic Energy ; and
if the Desire- Will aspect of * Am ' and ' Am-Not ' is seen as
* animating principle ', and the subordinate Laws of Nature as
' subsidiary necessities ', issuing like corollaries from the One
Primal Necessity hidden in the Supreme Logion, and express-
ed by minor maha-vakya-s. The succeeding chapters
m^y perhaps help to make the nature of Force- Shakti a little
clearer.
The all-important facts or concepts of Space, Time, and
Motion, also naturally figure prominently, and are referred to
frequently, in H.P.B.'s great Work (as the Index indicates
amply). But the metaphysical Why and How of them does not
appear to have been expounded in it. An attempt is made in
this work, in the preceding, and further endeavour will be
made in the succeeding, chapters, to supply this, as well as a
few other thoughts or things, out of Samskrt scriptures.
The Mahatma Letters and The Secret Doctrine
In connection with this topic, of de-finite a-tom (in-
divis-ible, from Gr. a, not, and tonein, to cut, to divide) and *
In -finite space, the following quotation from The Mahatma
Letters, 'pp. 77-78, may be helpful to bear in mind : " The
whole individuality is centred in the middle, or 3rd, 4th, and
5th principles. During earthly life it is all in the 4th (Kama-
rupa, sometimes called Kama-Manas), the centre of energy,
volition, will." Veda- Upanishats say, Kama- maya 6 v a
ayam purushah, ' (in-divid-ualised) Man is Desire only ',
i.e., Desire is the in-divid-ualising, focussing, finitising, de-
fining, de-limiting, principle. Now, that which is Desire-Force
in the mental, ideal, ' spiritual ', or ' subjective ' aspect, that
same manifests as Fohat-Force in the physical, real,
'material', or objective* aspect, and makes the in- divid-uai
in-divis-ible a-tom. Fohat ' focusses ' the Universal, concent-
rates it, brings It to a point, makes it an in-divid-ual, (as ?
magnifying glass does the diffused sunshine). It does this
by linking, binding (band ha), the whole and Universal I
with a part-icle, a part-icular ' this ', an ' a-tom ', an
up -ad hi, 'l-am-this'. The Secret Doctrine defines and
describes Fohat and its doings in dozens of ways (vide Index) ;
but this metaphysical idea will probably help to synthesise
P., CH. XI.] THE RELATIVE 199
them all. The chapters which follow, attempt to expound
this idea further. The Science of the Emotions deals in
extenso with the view that ' the individual man is essentially
Desire', and Cognition and Volition- Action are adjuncts;
and that the fading away of Desire is, per contra, the
re-universalising of the individual, the resolving and dissolving
of the whirlpool, its moksha, releasing, back into the Ocean.
CHAPTER XT
DVANDVAM THE RELATIVE (CONTINUED)
(C 1.) NEGATION AS SHAKTI-ENERGY THE RE-
LATION AND THE CAUSE OF INTERPLAY BETWEEN
THE SELF AND THE NOT-SELF
THE third factor in the S v a - b h a v a, own-being, of the
Absolute is ni-shedha, or prati-shdha, Negation,
denial, ' Not/ or rather the connecting of ' Not ' with
' Not-I 'by * I '.' From the standpoint of the Absolute,
this third factor is not a third, any more than the second
is a second ; for the third is a negation of the second
1 *HW ; fMfa, Slfcf-fa. ' Own-being ' may be regarded as a
variant of ' thing-in-itself ' ; it is ' self -being.' 'being-in-its-self,' the
peculiarity, personality, individuality of the thing ; ' temperament ' in
the mediaeval medical phrase ; ' constitutional idiosyncracy ' in the
modern scientific medical phrase; prakr.ti, nature, in both Samskft
Darshana, i.e., philosophy, and Vaidyaka, i.e., medicine.
Mula-prakrti or Matter and Daivi-prakrti or Force, together, make
up the whole Sva-bhavaof Purusha or Pratyag-atmS. ^f^-^jftwrgt:
3&3:, 'Force and Possessor of Force are not-different, not -separate
though distinguishable/
200 ANAGOGIC PERMUTATIONS [SC. OF
which is Nothing, No-limited-or-particular-thing, Not-
Being ; and, where this is so, it also follows that the first
is not a first, for there is nothing left to recognise it by as
a first ; the resultant being a Purity of Peace as regards
which nothing can be said and no exception taken. The
full significance of this Negation, which is the nexus
between Self and Not-Self, will appear when we consider
the different interpretations, which turn upon it, of the
logion, each correct, and each exemplified and illustrated
in the universe around us. Thus, the logion Aham-
Etat-Na may mean :
(a) M U A. Not Not-Self (,but only) Self (is).
(6) U A M. Not-self (is, and) Self (is) Not.
(c) M A U. (Only vacuity, nothingness is, and)
Not Self (or) Not-Self.
<<*) A M U. Self (is) Not Not-Self ; or, Self (is)
Not (,to the) Not-Self.
(e) U M A. Not-Self (is) Not Self ; or Not-Self
(is) Not (,to) Self.
(/) A U M. Self (is) Not-Self (and also) Not (it).
(g) A U M. Self Not-Self Not, the Ab-
solute wherein all possible permutations are. 1
1 These permutations are based on statements made in the Pranava-
Vada, an unpublished Saraskrt MS., referred to in Note I at the end of
Ch.' VII (p. 121, supra). As explained in detail in that work, V6da t
in the full sense of the word, is Cosmic Ideation, i.e., everything,
tsee footnote, p. 40 supra) , and the four collections of hymns, currently
known as the Vldas, in the plural, may be regarded as comparatively
small but highly important text-books of superphysical art and meta-
physical science.
The question may be legitimately asked : If all these permutations
and combinations of the factors of the logion are, as indeed they
obviously ought to be, included in Cosmic Ideation, and therefore true in
P., CH, Xl] WHAT IS ABSOLUTE TRUTH ? 201
Such permutations and combinations of Self and
Not-Self and Negation give rise to the actual varieties
of facts in the universe and to the corresponding beliefs
of man ; now to the prevalence of Spirit, now to the
their own times, places, and circumstances, is there any final absolute
truth, independently of time, place, and circumstance ; and is there any
infallible test of truth ? Who is to judge between the rival claimants of
truth ? What will decide ? Is it spiritual experience ? But spiritual ex-
periences differ also ; who is to judge between them ?
These difficulties may be solved thus. Absolute Truth can be only
that which totals up, reconciles, and synthesises in itself, all ' other '
truths, showing that they are all relative or partial or half-truths., If a
person says : " No ; errors and heresies are the irreconcilable opposites
of the truth," then he has to explain how they, (like sin, evil, pain, etc.,)
came to be. If he says, " By the act of God," then ' God ' is his absolute
truth wherein the reconciliation is found. What ' God ' means, and how
he brings home the ' absolute truth ' of ' God ' creating error, etc., will
remain for him to explain, or rather for the questioner and seeker to find
out ; for, the person who says errors are irreconcilable and synthesis
impossible, has no use for- absolute truth, i.e., the Absolute ; he is not
seeking it and does not want it yet. He is perfectly content with what
he has got, and it would be a mistake to try to give to him something
else which he does not want ; as food to one not hungry. If there be
any special reasons making it right to do so, then the need should first
be aroused in him. But the craving for Absolute Truth is not easily
aroused from without, by 'another'. It comes from within, through
the cyclic processes of life of the individual self. Therefore, among the
special and peculiar qualifications mentioned for the student of Ve<Janta,
the seeker after Brahma, is the ethical attitude of v a i r a g y a, revulsion
from the worldly life and dispassionate compassion for all sufferers, and
shama, 4ama, uparati, titiksha, shraddha, sama<jhana.
inner subsidence of desire and consequent serenity, self-control over
senses, wish for retirement and repose, resigned endurance of whatever
befalls, firm faith in one-Self and in the guide and teacher one has
chosen with due care, and collected single-mindedness ; Brhad Up.,
4.4.23; Nrsimha Uttara Tapini Up. t 6; Shankara, Sharlraka
Bh­a, I. i. 1.
^: I Bhagavaja, VI, iv, 41.
Daksha, reprimanding Narada, (who has led Daksha's young sons
astray, preaching vairagya to them), says: 'Without experience of the
sharpness, the intensity, of the objects of sense, there can be no surfeit and
no real, lasting, revulsion therefrom; the j i v a should, therefore, turn
from the world, suo motu ; not mis-led prematurely by others.'
202 THE SELF-EVIDENT [SC. OF
triumph of Matter, again to the reign of p r a 1 a y a ; to
dreaming, waking, and sleeping ; to subjective monism
or idealism, objective monism or materialism, sh u nya-
vada or nihilism, pantheism, solipsism, dualism, ab-
solutism, etc. (corresponding broadly, not strictly, to
a, 6, c, etc., above, respectively) and all other possible
forms of beliefs. 1 All these permutations mean only the
But as soon as the craving is aroused, the possibility of fulfilling it is
aroused also. So soon as, and no sooner than, a question forms in the
mind, the answer begins to form also. In fact the question is the first
part of the answer. As soon as a person says, " I want the Absolute
Truth." he means, " I want something which will reconcile, synthesise,
explain, and not merely condemn and abuse, all truths other or less than
this ideal Absolute Truth " ; and, as soon as he means that, he is on the
track of it, he has got hold of a vital feature of it. "It takes two to tell
the truth, one to tell it and one to hear it " ; *' truth is truth to him who
believes it " : " the one test of truth is the belief of the believer " , if
you convince a person that what he has believed so far is not true, then
you have created a new belief in him \ therefore he, the I, the Self,
the One We, is the final, universal, absolute test of Truth. ' Self -evidence '
is the absolute test and the Absolute Truth. He who asks, " Who is to
judge?" understands the answer, " The judge must be common, impartial,
equally benevolent to him, you, me, all the parties , and, here, such is
the Self ' ' ; and he who asks ' ' What is to prove, ' ' will understand the
answer, "Self-evidence,'' the evidence of the Self, by, to, and in the
Self. The western school of thinkers who said ' conceivability ' was the
test, really meant this. ' Spiritual experience ' is nothing distant and
mysterious. A//a-pa-roksha, direct ' experience, ' which comes home,
whether cognitive, emotional, or actional, is such; and whether of
physical or of superphysical and subtle things. It attains its highest
degree, its ' re-alisation ', its ' re-ality', its ' act-uality ', when all these
aspects of the consciousness coalesce, when the individual's cognition
is so clear and certain that he feels or desires and also acts accordingly.
The faith that maketh martyrs witnesseth itself. See pp, 22-23, 96, suf>ra.
1 f fa *HT sreNsra ar3Ri ^faft: 1*1*1 i
flf sqHKJ gfaJTr^; f^tf PftrofoCTJI Bhagavaja, XI, xxii.
' The seers have thus explained the fundamental constituents and
features of the universe in various ways. Each way is just, because of its
own special reasons. The wise see no conflict and no lack of beauty
in any.'
Each preceding view leaves behind an unreduced surd, and conse-
quent discontent, which grows slowly. When the last view is reached,
?., CH. Xl] TURMOIL within PEACE 203
accentuating, in different degrees, of the factors of the
Logion severally. If we emphasise them all equally,
then we find the Peace of the Absolute left untouched ;
because the net result, of the three being taken in combi-
nation, is always a neutralising, a balancing, of opposition,
which may indifferently be called fullness or emptiness,
peace or blankness, " the voice, the music, the resonance
of the silence " ; because the three, A, U, and M, are
verily simultaneous, are in inseparable combination, are
not amenable to arrangements and re-arrangements, to
permutations and combinations ; and these last merely
appear, but appear inevitably, only when the whole is
looked at from the standpoint of apart an A, a U, or an
M, which is necessarily bound to an order, a succession,
an arrangement. And yet also the whole multitude
and Turmoil of the World-Process is in that Peace ; for
' No-thing,' Not-Self, is ' all things destroying each
other,' and Negation is ' abolition of all these particular
things ' ; and ' I ' is that for the sake of which, and in ,
and by the consciousness of which, all this abolition
takes place. This is the true significance of the Sankhya
doctrine that Prakrti, Not-Self, displays herself and
hides herself incessantly, only in order to provide an
endless foil for the Self-realisation, the amusement,
no surd remains ; all views are reconciled ; each is seen to have its own
beauty and duty. From one standpoint, pantheism may appear as a com-
bination of I and Not-I only, rather than as a permutation of all three
factors of the Logion. But (f) above may be interpreted as Spinoza's
pantheism, viz., that A and U, Thought and Extension, (Mind and
Matter), both, are two aspects of that which is Not-describable otherwise ;
or as Pope's pantheism, viz., "The universe is one stupendous whole,
whose Body Nature is and God the soul ' ' .
204 IMAGINATIVE ATTENTION [SC. OF
of Purusha, Self. 1 In such interplay, both find ever-
lasting and inevitable fullness of manifestation, fullness
of realisation, and unfettered recreation.
Metaphysical Catalysis
1 Compare H. Ellis, Psychology of Sex, Vol. Ill, p. 95
(" Love and Pain ") : " . . . The male is active and the female
passive and imaginatively attentive to the states of the
excited male . . . The female develops a superadded activity,
the male becomiug relatively passive and imaginatively
attentive to the psychical and bodily states of the female.
. . ." ; and the well-known doctrines, of Sarikhya, viz., that
Purusha is the actionless Spectator of the movements, the
dance, of Prakrti ; and of Vedanta, viz., that the juxtaposition
or coexistence of Purusha and Prakrti, (the metaphysical
archetypes of sex), superimposes, causes a d h y a s a of, the
characteristics of each upon the other, by v i-v a r t a, inversion.
The mere presence and proximity of a person, of one sex
is enough to produce some excitement (not necessarily lustful
at all) in a person of the other sex. The Sankhya description of
Prakrti exhibiting Herself to the watching Purusha, and
shrinking away ashamed, as soon as the latter loses interest and
turns away His eyes this is, literally, an expansion, to the
Universal and Infinite scale, of the facts of daily sex-life ; and
the latter are, conversely and obversely, the contraction
to the finite scale, of the Infinite Fact, of the never-ceasing
Drama of the Interplay of the Eternal Masculine and the
pseudo- Eternal Feminine.
r 3*4 %$& gqfa
Sankhya Karika, 21 and 16.
* In order that Purusha may see Prakrti and then retire into
Soli-tude, and that Prakrji may show Herself (and then shrink
away), the two come together ; as may the lame man who
cannot walk but can see, and the blind man who can walk but
cannot see, in order to help each other. Very modest, shy,
P., CH. Xl] ETERNAL FRMTNINE-MASCULINE 205
The why of the movement of this Interplay, of to
and fro, identification and separation, action and reaction,
has been already dealt with, in one aspect, in the previ-
ous chapter. It will have appeared from what was said
there, that the Negation necessarily appears, and can only
appear, in the limited as, first, an affirmation, and then, a
negation.
We may now consider a little more fully the nature
of the affirmation and the negation. The statement,
repeated from time to time, that negation hides affir-
mation within it, and as preceding it in time, should be
clearly grasped. In the logion, Ego Non-ego Non (est),
the bracketed est, (or sum), is the hidden affirmation. A
little reflection shows that it should be so, and must be
so, quite unobjectionably ; that thought can detect no
fault in the fact. Take away the est, not only from the
sentence but really from consciousness, and the remain-
ing three words lose all coherent meaning. To deny a
thing, it is necessary first to describe it r to allege it as
at least a supposition, a hypothesis ; and to describe it,
is to postulate for it at least a false, an assumed,
sensitive, is Prakrty ; for having shown herself, and been seen,
if the spectator turns away, she vanishes/ The chemical pheno-
menon of catalysis seems to correspond to the psychological
phenomenon of " imaginative attention " and its effects upon
that which is attended to. The watering of the mouth in the
presence of a tasteful edible ; the expanding of the eyes or the
nostrils, in that of a beautiful form or color or fragrant
perfume all these are variants of the same fact. In all cases,
of course, the perceiver must be ' interested ' and ( pursuant ' ;
not ' tired ' and ' renunciant '.
206 THE EVER IMPLICIT ' AM ' [SC. OF
existence. In order that Non-Ego may be denied, it must
first be alleged as at least a supposition. For this reason,
and for the reason that affirmation and negation cannot be
contemporaneous in a single, particular, limited, thing, it
comes about, as we have seen, that the logion, for the pur-
poses of the limited, in order that the limited may ex-ist
and appear and be a fact at all, necessarily falls into two
parts, (a) Ego Non-Ego, and (6) Non-Ego Non. The first
contains implicitly, hidden in its stated words, the word
est or sum, for otherwise it has no meaning ; and the
second part also similarly contains implicitly within it the
same word est or sum, which alone gives it any significance.
For the reasons already partially explained in chapters
VII and IX, the affirmation and the negation respectively
take on the form of an identification of Self with Not-
Self, and of a separation from it. The mere unconcerned
assertion, in the third person, of the being or the non-
being of Non-Ego, has no interest for Self ; it has no
motive for making such an apathetic assertion. Such
indifferent statement about another would have no reason
to justify it, to make it necessary, to explain why it came
to be made at all. It cannot be said that Not-Self is a
fact, and so has an existence independent of the motives
and reasons and interests of Self ; because it has been
settled at the outset that Not-Self cannot be, must not
be, is not, independent of Self, but very dependent
thereon for all such existence as it has. Therefore it
follows necessarily that the assertion and denial of that
Not-Self by Self should be connected with a purpose in
P,, CH. Xl] IN BOTH PARTS OF THE LOGION 207
Self, should immediately subserve some interest in that
Self. The only purpose and interest that there can be, in
that which is Ever-Perfect, "Full, Desireless, and therefore
Purposeless, is Self-recognition, Self-definition, Self-reali-
sation, Self -maintenance, Self-preservation, Self-asser-
tion. The eternal Self requires nothing in reality from
outside of it-Self ; it is only ever engaged in the one
pastime of asking : " What am I ? what am I ? am I
this ? am I this ? " and assuring itself : " No, I am not
this, I am not this, but only My-Self." This pastime, 1 it
must be remembered, which, from the standpoint of the
1 this ' is repeated again and again, is from the standpoint
of the ' I ' but one single, eternal, and 'changeless act of
consciousness in which there is no movement. Thus,
therefore, the affirmation necessarily takes on the form of
an identification of ' I ' with ' Not-I,' and the negation,
that of the dis-identification, the separation, of ' I ' from
4 Not-I '. The logion is not merely a neutral state-
ment of the non-entity of * Not-I '.
The affirmation, then, Ego est Non-Ego, not only
imposes on ' Not-I ' the Being which belongs inherently
to Self, but also, for the time, makes it identical with
the Self, i.e., a self ; and at this stage, that is to say, in
the separation of the two parts of the logion, because
' Not-I ' is always a particular, a limited something, it
takes on its most significant character and name, viz.,
1 ^faftil 3 5ft*wfcf*t I Brahma-Stitra, II. i, 32. L i 1 is pastime.
A western writer has said well that ' ' The history of man is one long
search for God". Vedn|a and Sankhya-Yoga instruct us how "The
history of the whole universe is one eternal search-and-finding by Self of
It-Self ". See f. n. 2 on p. 84, supra.
208 'i (AM)' BEGINS AND ENDS THE DAY [sc. OF
' this,' i d a m ', or ' t a t,' as it is called in Samskrt
books. Side by side, also, with this change of name of
Not-Self, (which does not mein any change of nature, but
only indicates the special and most important aspect and
manifestation of the nature of Not-Self), the bracketed est
becomes sum, and the first part of the logion becomes :
* I (am) this.' In continued consequence of that
same reason, the second part of the logion becomes :
4 This not (am I),' having the same meaning as, ' I am
not this/ with a special significance, viz., that in the
actual World- Process, in every cycle whether it be the
daily waking and falling to sleep of the individual human
being, or the s a r g a and p r a 1 a y a, creation and disso-
lution, of world-systems the I -consciousness begins as
well as ends the day, the period of activity and manifest-
ation. The new-born baby's first shut-eyed feeling in
the morning is the vague feeling of a self, in which of
course a not-self is also present, though a little more
vaguely ; and his last shut-eyed feeling in the evening is
the same vague feeling of a self returning, from all the
outward and gradually dimming not-self, into its own in-
wardness and sleep. The order of the words in Samskrt,
Aham-]tat-Na (as mi), expresses this fact; and it ex-
presses something additional also, for asm i, ' (I) am,'
indicates that the individual ' I ', at the end of the day's
work, is, as it were, fuller, has more deliberate and definite
self-consciousness, than it had at the beginning thereof.
The ' this,' it now appears, is, in the first place,
the u p a 4 h i, the body, the sheath, or the organism,
P., CH. XI'] THE BHRAMA OF THE 'SWAN 1 209
which the individualised spirit occupies, owns, identi-
fies itself with, and, again, rejects and casts away ; and,
in the second place, it is all the world of * objects ' with
which the Spirit may identify itself, which it may possess
and own as part of itself, as belonging to itself, and again
renounce, in possibility.
Thus, through the dual nature of Negation, dual by
reflection of the being of Self and the non-being of Not-
Self, is kept incessantly moving, that revolving wheel of
Samsaraof which it has been declared : ' That wherein
all find living, that wherein all find rest, that which is
boundless and shoreless in that tire-less wheel of Brahma,
turneth round and round the h a rn - sa, the swan, because,
and so long as, it believeth itself to be separate from the
mover of the wheel ; but when it - recogniseth its own
oneness with that Self which ever turneth the wheel, it
forthwith cometh to rest, and attaineth the Peace of Im-
mortality.' l ' So-ham,' is the jlva that recognises the
\
ShvetCtshvatara, i, 6.
Glta also speaks of the chakra of the World-Process
di, 16). The ' cyclical ' movement of the World-Process, in
space and in time, is a patent fact ; its reason is to be found
in the alternating, rhythmic, succession of the two parts of the
logion. Chakra, kuklos, cycle, circle, are etymologically
allied. The same idea, as expressed by bhramaorbhranfi
appearing in Brahma, ' wandering and straying round and round
in space,' has been referred to on p. 159, supra. To run round
and round in circles, as the orbs of space are doing, like puppies
chasing their own tails, is to be aimless, mistaken, illusion-ed.
14
210 TRYING TO ACHIEVE INFINITY [SC. OF
identity of the Universal Ego with the individual ego
in the words ' Sah Aham,' 'That am I 1 ; whereas
'ham-sa' (which, as an ordinary word, means the
migrating swan, recurrently, periodically, flying to and
fro between the arctic and the temperate zones, between
cold and heat), is the reversal and contradiction of this
recognition, and indicates the j I v a (migrating recurrently
The word b h r a m a covers all these meanings, all these
analogies. Say that ' chasing one's own tail ' is ' chasing one's
own Self ', and the aimless becomes the aimful ; the illusion-ed,
becomes the illumin-ed. To put it in another way : This verse of
the Upanishat pictures the v i-v a r t a view. Believing it-self
to be an infinitesimal speck, the j I v a rushes round and round,
trying to achieve Infinity by encompassing all Space. It does
so, because, though outwardly believing itself to be limited,
finite, inwardly it knows it-self to be Infinite ; and the endless
circling and cycling is due to the necessity of making the
Outer belief One with the Inner ; and thus abolishing the
restless and intolerable pain of inconsistency and conflict.
So soon as the j I v a dis-covers that it is It-Self this Infinite
Space, that It has that Space within It-Self, instead of It-Self
being within It, so soon is the v i-v a r t a, reversal f of out-
look, change of attitude, completed. It is the same with
Time and Motion. The ' solid ' substantial speck or atom,
which the j 1 v a formerly identified itself with, in ' empty '
Space, now begins to be seem as a ' vacuum '-bubble C koil-
on ')> a ' vortex of nothing ', (mere ' imagination '), in 'a
Plenum of Consciousness. There is a reversal, v i - v a r t a,
in all aspects and respects. The world is seen in a ' new *
light. Every-thing becomes * new ; ' ' ST '3&IPI 0$ ' *Nt 7 3>dfcf
fffl c 5T-^: ; * because it makes everything seem new, there-
fore is it called Pr&-nava '. ' The solid-seeming world doth
vanish like a cloud, nor leaves a wrack behind ' ; becomes a
dream, when 'man, most ignorant of what he's most assured,
his glassy essence ', casts off that i-gnor-ance, a-v i d y a,
recovers v i d y a, wisdom, assurance of his glassy essence,
his Self, the Self of all.
P., CH. XI] BY ENDLESS CIRCLING 211
between ' this world ' and ' that world ', and also from body
to body) which does not recognise its identity with the
* I '. Two arcs, and two only, and always, are there in the
endless revolution of this wheel. On the first arc, that
which is not, ' This,' appears as if it is; it takes 'name
and form,' ' a local habitation and a name,' and predo-
minates over Self. This is the Pravrtti-marga, Path
of Pursuit, whereon the individualised self feels its identity
more and more with some not-self, separates itself more
and more from the Universal Self, runs after the things of
sense, and takes them on to itself more and more. But
when the end of this first arc of his particular cycle comes,
then it inevitably undergoes viveka and va i r ag y a, 1
discriminative, reflective, introspective, intense think-
ing and surfeit, and turns round on to the other arc,
the Nivrtti-marga, Path of Renunciation; on
which, realising more and more its identity with the
Universal Self, it separates itself more and more from the
things of sense, and gradually and continually gives away
all that it has acquired of Not-Self to other jlvas, who
are on the Pravrtti-marga and need them. Thus,
while on the first arc, Not-Self, falsely masquerading
as a self, prevails, and the true Self is hidden, on the
second arc the true Self prevails, and that Not-Self, or
1 See pp. 12, 18. V i - v e k a is discrimination between n i t y a and a-
nitya, the Permanent and the Fleeting ; and vai-ragya is the co-
efficient revolt against all selfish desire for fleeting things and sorrow-
pervaded joys. The Permanent appears to the j I v a first as the lasting,
then as the ever-lasting, and only finally as the true Eternal, the opposite
or v i - v a r t a of the other two, in correspondence respectively with the
three answers (chs. ii and vii, supra).
212 'EYE OF MATTER' AND 'EYE OF SPIRIT' [sc. OF
the false self, is hidden and slowly passes out of sight.
To him who sees with the ' eye of matter ' only, incogni-
sant yet of the true Self, the j I v a seems to live and
grow on the first arc, and to decay and die on the second,
and be no more at the end of it. The reverse is the case
to the ' eye of spirit '. What the truth is, of both and
in both, is clear to him who knows the S v a-b h a v a of
the Absolute, and the perfect balance between Spirit
and Matter.
Inasmuch as ' this-es ' are endless in number and
extent of temporal and spatial limitation, cycles are also
endless in number and extent, ranging from the smallest
to the largest ; and yet there are no smallest and largest r
for there are always smaller and larger. Again, cycles
and periods of activity are always and necessarily being
equally, balanced by corresponding periods of non-activ-
ity ; and vice versa. Further reasons for this may
appear later on, in connection with the Law of Action
and Reaction, and the nature of Death. Thus s a r g a,
emanation, is succeeded by pralaya, dissolution, and the
latter by the former, endlessly, on all possible scales ; and
their minute intermixture and complication is pseudo-in-
finite. Thus are the names justified, of nitya-sarga,
continual incessant creation, and nitya-pralaya, per-
petual unremitting destruction. From this complication
it results that there is no law belonging to any one cosmic
system, small or large, which the limited jiva can divine
and work out, on limited data, with the lower reason, i.e.,
the understanding or m a n a s, of which law there is no
P., CH. Xl] BUDDHI AND MANAS 213
breach and to which there is no exception ; and, again,
there is no breach which will not come under a higher
law belonging to another and larger system ; that ulti-
mately, ' order ' and * disorder ' are both equally illusions,
both essentially subjective, both ' such stuff as dreams
are made of '. The pure or higher or transcendental
reason or b u d d h i, sees the necessity of both, the
particular law and the breach of that law, from the
standpoint of the all-inclusive Absolute. 1
1 The distinction between b u d d h i and m a n a s has
been indicated before and will become clearer as we proceed.
Briefly, Universal Mind, unconscious or sub-conscious or
supra-conscious omniscience, reason which relates together
all things at once and is * pure ' from all admixture of moti-
vation and therefore limitation, obscuration, perversion, or
aberration by selfish egoistic desire and, so far as possible,
the manifestation of such pure reason in the individual con-
sciousness also is B u d d h i. Individual mind, dominated by
egoism, its vision coloured and narrowed by a particular
interest, not made transparent and world- wide by the * pure '
wish to know all, for the sake of the * deliverance ' of all
such egoistic mind, manifesting in and by attention to a
particular object, is Manas. Indeed, such m a n a s is the
jiva itself. (Vide the quotation from Yoga-Vasishtha in
the foot-note at p. 32, supra, and Gita, XVI. 17, and III. 29).
In terms of the logio^, we might put it thus. Universal
I, ideating jthe whole of Not-I, is Universal Mind, M a h a t,
Mahan-Atma, Vishnu, etc. ; from the standpoint of the
individual I, this Universal Mind is the unconscious, sub-
conscious or supra-conscious ; it is b u d d h i or ' pure ' reason
or s h u d d h a j n a n a, in the fullest sense, reason here being
not the step-by-step arguing intelligence, but the all-relating
awareness, all-grasping intuition. The same Universal, when
faintly individualised (the * We ' aspect predominant, the
* 1 ' aspect very subordinate, the egoistic intensity and limi-
tation unaroused and undefined by strong desire), and
214 HOT POINT OF CONSCIOUSNESS [SC. OF
Having thus very cursorily indicated some of the
most important features of the Interplay of Self and
Not-Self in the World- Process, as arising out of the
ideating the most general aspects of the things that make up
Not-I, with the faintest trace of succession, is buddhiin
manifestation, cognising metaphysical, mathematical, scientific
generalisations. The same I, when ideating not-I's, * this-es ', in
the predominantly particular and singular aspects, itself being
focussed or canalised by definite egoistic desire, is m a n a s,
the outstanding feature of which is ' attention,' whereby the
1 hot point ' or focus in the field of consciousness changes
from place to place. (See William James, Stout, Hoffding,
etc.) The ability to direct this power of ' attention ' deli-
berately and effectively, by practice in inhibition, n i - r o d h a,
of psychoses that are not wanted, and in contemplation,
sam - yama, of, and focussing on, that which is wanted, is
yoga s i d d h i, achievement, accomplishment (of attentional
mind-power, mental force ; achievement of which ability is the
first practical object of applied psychology, i.e., Yoga).
(Bergson's writings help to illustrate this.)
In the more definitely individualised I, which is the
man as above-mentioned, compounded of ' I * and ' not- 1,'
j I v a ' and ' atom/ the reflection, of the Universal B u d d h i
above-mentioned, appears as intellect, also called b u d d h i in
Samskrt, with the function of j n a n a or cognition ; the
reflection of the ' I ' appears as a h a m-k a r a with the
function of desire-emotion ; and the reflection of m a n a s
itself as the man as again, with tte function of conation and
action. The summation of these three functions is called
c h i 1 1 a ; which, however, has a function of its own, memory,
which, again, is, so to say, the Universal Mind in the indivi-
dual, the infinite storehouse out of which the individual, by
attention, draws, in succession, what it wants, and into which
it merges, when the whirling harmonogram of vas ana-
desire, the will to live as a separate individual, t r s h n, a,
libido, which makes chitta what it is, disappears in
moksha orpraljiya (for the time being). The theoso-
phical doctrine of Atma-Buddhi-Manas seems to be in
accord with these ideas.
P., CH. Xl] " SOUL-STRUGGLES BY NIGHT " 215
affirmative-negative nature of the third factor of the
Absolute, we may next deal with the Cause of the Inter-
play, from another standpoint than that taken up in
Chapter X, in connection with the question why parts
appear in the logion.
For illustration by analogy, we may say that the
person in deep sleep represents Absolute Consciousness ;
just before full waking, while he is taking a pros-
pective view of the whole of the coming day's work,
he represents b u d d h i ; when awake and actually en-
gaged in a piece of the work, man as. At the end of
this chapter will be found a collection of relevant Samskrt
quotations in a separate notQ. It seems to be an important,
perhaps even fundamental part of Yoga-discipline, to * wake
up ' the soul and make it conscious in the region of what
is now its im-conscious. A Master has said that a disciple
progresses through " soul-struggles by night ". The mean-
ing seems to be that the disciple should fix in his mind,
during the day, the determinate resolve that he will not
allow himself to become, in the night, the puppet of his
dreams ; i.e., of his ' unconscious f lower desires, carnal pas-
sions, etc., which come out, like thieves in the night, and
secure indulgence and satisfaction for themselves, by creating
the images, fancies, phantasies, dramatic scenes, situations,
of the dreams ; and which, the disciple has prevented his mind
from entertaining during his waking hours ; (or, in other words,
which desires of the lower mind have been kept at bay by the
disciple's higher mind, during the waking hours) ; and that,
by such fixed resolve, he becomes more and more able to
struggle against those base fancies ; he can more and more
consciously prevent them from arising, even during the
dreams ; and his dream -life, therefore and thereby, becomes,
so to say, a continuation of his day-life, part of his waking
consciousness. The same Master has said elsewhere (but my
memory here is faint and doubtful) that he, the Master, sleeps
without dreaming at all, the three or four hours, out of the
twenty-four, that he ordinarily spends in bed. In this way,
the ' individual ', progressing on the Upward Path becomes
216 CHANGING DREAMING INTO WAKING [SC. OF
It has been said that this multitudinous process
of Samsara takes place through Negation, and the
word ' necessary ' and its derivatives have been used
from time to time, all along, in accounting for step after
step of the deduction. It is clear that Negation, with
its included affirmation, is only a description of the
Relation between Self and Not-Self. It stands between
them as a nexus between two termini. It inheres in the
two, and is nothing apart and separate from them ; by
itself it can do nothing ; but, as being the combined
Nature of the two, it explains, expounds, accounts for,
and supports the infinitely complex process of Samsara.
This combination of the Nature of the Two into the dual
Negation constitutes the Necessity of the movement
involved in the Logion. 1 This Necessity requires no
support or justification ; it is self-evident at every step
of the deduction ; it plainly inheres in, and is part of
more and more perfectly self-controlled on all planes of his
being, more and more Master of him-Self.
Persistent introspection, pratyak-chtana; tracing
semi- consciously, even during the dream, its occurrence to the
influence of incidents which have actually taken place in the
day ; mantra-jap a, continuous inner silent recitation of
some * sacred words of power ' ; willing and praying to the
All-pervading ' Power ', for ' power ' to resist evil thoughts,
and bring in good ones only all this helps the soul to struggle
successfully.
1 A fact is a necessary fact, a necessity. Every event is its own
justification. When a fact is, so to say, violently and arbitrarily disrupted,
and insistently pieces itself together in a new synthesis, a new form, the
disruption is said to have been followed by its necessary consequence,
illustrating the law of causality, which is the Law of Identity, i.e.,
Identity persisting through apparent changes in succession.
P., CH. Xl] TWO MEANINGS OF AUTO-MATISM 217
the nature of, the three factors of the triune Absolute,
which have been sufficiently explained, justified, and
established, before. For, remember, this nature is not
three separate natures or even two separate natures,
belonging to three or two separate, or even separable,
factors of the Absolute but is only One Single and
Changeless Nature, the Nature of ' I ' denying that It is
'Not-I'. Whatever may be distinguished or said of
Not-Self and Negation, or of their respective natures,
can be said only by the courtesy of that Supreme Nature
which is the source, the essence, and the whole, indeed
the very Nature, of what we call their natures. Bearing
this in mind, we may easily see that this Supreme and
changeless Nature is N i-y at i , the 'fixed', A v a s h y a k a-t a,
Necessity* i.e., the nature of the Whole, that which
must be always, that which cannot be changed and
avoided. This Necessity is the One Law of all Laws,
because it is the nature of the changeless, timeless,
Absolute ; all other laws flow from it, inhere in it, are
included within it. It is the Primal Power, the One
Force, the all-compelling Supreme Energy, in and of the
World-Process, from which all forces are derived, and
into which they all return ; because they are inseparate
from it, are only its endless manifestations and forms.
1 If ' Necessity ' is derived from ne, not, and cessum, to yield, to give
up, and means ' that which will not yield ', then it is literally the same as
8-v aghyaka-ta, that which is beyond vasha or control, that which
cannot be checked. The word niyati (nitaram, wholly, y a m, to
control) is used frequently in Yoga Vftstshtha, in the sense of ' fixed '
necessity. D i s h t a is another Samskft word with an allied sense,
4 destiny ', ' fated ', ' ordained ', ' doomed ' ; from dish, to direct,
order, point out the direction (d i s h a, d e s h a) in which to go.
218 * CAUSE ' AND * CONDITION ' [SC. OF
Its unbreakable and unalterable Oneness and Complete-
ness appears in the facts of the Conservation of
Energy ; and of Motion (which undergoes transformations
only, and never suffers any real reduction, so that the
distinction between static and kinetic is at bottom
illusory, apparent only, and, in reality, one of only com-
parative degree) ; and the Indestructibility of Matter,
which manifests in ever-new ways, ever-new qualities, but
is never changed in the Total quantity ; for the Absolute
may not be added to nor subtracted from. It is Absolute
Free-Will, which is called in the sacred books by the
name of Maya-Shakti, Impersonal Goddess of a thousand
names and a thousand hymns ; ! who alone is in reality
worshipped by every worshipper, either as Nirguna
\
JR, urcrf, STTR sr f sisfS,
T: ?fcf 3f STff r t
f)evl Bhagavata, VII, xxxii,
' ShaktL becomes an Efficient Cause, n i m i t ta, by conjunction with
Consciousness, Chaitanya; and a necessary Condition, concomitant.
s a h a-k a r i, (orsadharapa, a-prthak-siddha, upa-karana)
in transformations of objects. Some call Her Tapas, some Tamas, Jada,
A-jnana, Maya, Prakyti, or Aja. Shaivas name" Her Vimarsha ; Vaidikas,
A-vidya. Such are Her many names in the Nigamas, traditions, of
different thinkers and worshippers.'
I Ibid. t III. vi.
P., CH. XI] NECESSITY, THE CAUSL OF CAUSES 219
Vidya or as Saguna A-vidya; because she ensouls
all the million forms that human beings worship,
each according to his heart's desire. It includes in
itself the characters, or rather the single character, of
all the Three Ultimates, and it thereby becomes an-
other expression for and of the Absolute, viz., Becoming.
Thus, a hymn, personifying Shakti in imagination,
utterly inseparable though she is from the Absolute,
and therefore impersonal, exclaims : ' Thou art the
consort of the most high Brahma.' ! This Necessity is
the cause of all causes, karanam karanana m, a and
all other so-called necessities are but reflections of it.
We may appropriately consider the meaning of
' Cause ' in this connection. From the standpoint of
psychology, as has been shown over and over again by
various acute and accurate thinkers in many lands, the
world is an endless succession of sense-impressions; and
the idea of absolute necessity, which we associate with
the successions that are described as cause and effect, is
a mere hallucination produced by the fact that a certain
succession has been invariable so far as our experience
has gone. This view is correct so far as it goes ; but
ef wro 3p*n | ibid.. VII, xxvui.
' When men wish to express contempt for a (feeble, lethargic, inert,
spineless) person, they do not call him Rudra-less or Vishnu-less, but
Shakti-less, Power-less, Energy-less. We meditate on Her, the Sovereign
Goddess of the Universe, as the very Meaning, the whole significance, of
Pra-nava, AUM.'
Shankara, Ananda-Laharl.
220 LILA, THE FINAL why [SC. OF
only so far as it goes. It does not go far enough. It
does not explain satisfactorily the * Why ' of the halluci-
nation. Indeed, some holders of the view refuse to deal
with a ' Why ' at all. They content themselves with a
mere description, a ' How '. But others will not rest
within such restrictions. They must understand how
and why there come to be a ' How , and a ' Why ' at all
in our consciousness ; how and why we talk of ' because '
and * therefore ' and * for this reason '. It is true that
every so-called law of nature is only 4< a resume, a brief
description, of a wide range of perceptions," l but why is
there any uniformity in the world at all, such as makes
possible any such resume or brief description ?
The explanation of all this is that each * why/ each
generalisation, each law, is subsumed under a wider and
wider law, till we come to that final and widest law, the
Logion-, which is the resume^ the Sva-bhava, the nature,
of the Absolute, which, Sva-bhava, because of its Change-
lessness, requires no further l why '*
1 Pearson's Grammar of Science, p. 132, 1st edn.
3<^ 3?5fton I ' The unchanging is the uncaused.'
The series of ' why's,' with reference to actions, ' Why did you do this ? '
' Because of this,' ' Why that ? ' ' Because of that,' etc., ceases when
the reply comes, ' It was my pleasure '. Few people ask further, ' Why
was it your pleasure ? ' There is an instinctive recognition of the fact
that the pleasure, the Will of the Me, the Self, is something final. But
if any should ask that question also, the reply is but an expansion, or
another form or aspect, of the same fact, viz., that all ' things ' are in
the I ; i.e. t all ' this-es,' all conjunctions and all disjunctions with all
possible things, i.e., all possible pleasures (i.e., desires and fulfilments
of desire or will for conjunction), and also all possible corresponding
reactive and necessarily implied pains (which also are ' pleasures, ' sfal,
being willed by the Self, sub-consciously, as fulfilments of desire or will
for disjunction) are Mine. In other words, ' It was, and is, and will be
P., CH. Xl] NO CHANGE, NO CAUSE, NO WHY 221
A cause is asked for by the human mind only when
there is an effect, a change. We do not ask ' Why ? '
otherwise. We ask it because the very constitution of
our being, our inmost nature of unbroken unity as the
one Self, ' I am I,' ' A is A,' revolts against the creation
of something new; against A disappearing and not-A
appearing; against A becoming * not-A,' i.e., becoming
B, C, etc. We cannot assimilate such an innovation ;
there is nothing in that inmost nature of ours to
respond to it. Our whole being, our whole nature,
insistently demands Continuity, Identity, in which is
to be found Changeless Immortality, and without
which our Eternity would be jeopardised ; for if any
my pleasure to undergo all possible experiences, including this one,
which you ask about '. In the f n. on p. 50, supra, is stated the
question which Vidura, sorely exercised in mind, put to Rshi Maitrdya.
Maitreya answered him in words which may be interpreted in two ways ;
: I Bhagavat*. Ill, vu, 9-10.
' This is the Lord's Ma-ya which denes all nay a, logic, reason, all why
and wherefore this, viz. t that Ishvara, the Sovereign Lord of the
Universe, the Ever- Free, appears as a humble creature bound in bonds
of all sorts; that, without any art ha, meaning, purpose, without
rhyme or reason, senselessly, the Supreme Man turns Him-Self inside-
out, upside-down, reverses Him-Self, becomes the Opposite of what He
really ;is. The Witness of all, sees Him-Self, appears to Him-Self, as to
a by-stander, as if He had cut off His own head, as jugglers do ' '
Such is the plain meaning of the words ; but, equally plainly, it is
not a satisfying reply to Vidura 's question. The real reply is in the
riddle of the words, y a t nayena virudhyate. They admit of
another interpretation, by separating the single-seeming nayena into
two, n a and y 6 n a. In Skt., the gloss would run : 5$ flf ^31, fr^, $R
; ' The Illusion is that This, E t a t, which,
222 SPIRIT'S UNBROKEN IDENTITY [SC. OF
thing could be annihilated, why might not I also be
liable to the same catastrophe ? We therefore inevitably
break out with a ' why ? ' whenever we see a change.
And the answer we receive is a * because,' which endea-
vours to resolve the effect into the cause, in the various
aspects of matter, motion, force, etc., and shows that the
effect is really not different from the cause, but is identical
with it. And we are satisfied, our sense of, and our
craving for, Unbroken Unity is soothed. 1 Causality is
the reconciliation between the necessity, the fixed unity,
of Self on the one hand, and the accidentality, flow and
flux, manyness, of Not-Self, on the other.
is the Opposite of the Lord, Self, is Not.' In this way, the LI la, Play,
is seen to be static, eternally frozen, changeless ; not kinetic, moving,
changeful.
This may, no doubt, appear a forced explanation. But we know
well that 4 mystic ' writings are full of such riddling rhymes, and that
the ' the kingdom of Heaven has to be taken by storm '.
1 See foot-notes, ch. II, pp. 7, 9, 11, supra. Hoffding's treatment
of the problem of causation, in Outlines of Psychology, ch. V-D, will be
found useful in this connection, as explaining in modern terms,
vikara- orparinam a-v a d a, which may be called the scientific
conception of causation. Hoffding himself holds it, as distinguished
from what he calls the popular conception of causation, corresponding
to a r a m b h a-v a d a. The last stage of thought in this resnect,
which may similarly be called the metaphysical conception of causation,
is vivarta-vada, next dealt with in the text, and briefly defined
in Paftcha-dashl, xiii, 9, thus :
-a fcra!
' The false appearance of changes of states in the Changeless One,
as of a snake in a piece of rope in the dark, isvivarta, vortex,
turning round, facing round, opposition ' ; false appearance as
distinguished from really passing from one state into another.
Or, in Vdanta-sara t thus,
The corresponding definition of vikara is, flflr^^tyW SWT
P., CH. Xl] THREE VIEWS OF CAUSE-EFFECT 223
But, all the same, it is only a subterfuge, an evasion,
a mayavic illusion ; it is only * the next best thing ' ;
?rg^tf<cT: I ' Appearance of change, when there is no real change, is
vivaria; change, when real, and in a real substance, is v i k a r a '.
Another way of describing the three stages is this ;
(1) *BTJT (STTCWHcO *$ 3W31, WraLBtt; 'The effect is non-
existent before its birth ; it is existent, real, after birth ' : this is the
Nyaya-Vaisheshika view.
(2) *w (seTO:) iwfq *?<i, qsara; ^ e^ ; wri^TOif? sifJro,
3W ^?r?cR Ipf, cW qfalR:, f33>ft: ; ' The effect is existent before
as well as after birth, because it is not really different from the cause,
but only another form of it ' ; this is the Sankhya view.
(3) ^T^f ^ 3fft 3?*Kl , q^7^ 3ffq, ' The effect is non-existent,
unreal, untrue, before as well as afterbirth, i <-., appearance ' : this is
the Vedanta view.
The reconciliation of all these is thus : A r a mb h a-v a d a (Nyaya-
Vaisheshika) may be said to be true with reference to the new form, and
to the k a r t a, the doer, actor, maker, the efficient cause, whose
s ha k t i, power, will, creates or brings into manifestation, the new form ;
in other words, produces the transformation, the change, the newness.
P a r i n a m a-v a d a (Sankhya) is true with reference to the u p a d a n a f
the material cause, the matter or substance which is transformed.
Vivarta-vada (Vedanta) is true with reference to the One Nature of
all the Factors taken together at once, from the transcendental stand-
point (as distinguished from the empirical or experiential standpoint
which sees things in succession, one after another).
This Transcendental View of Causation, or absence of cause-and-
effect succession, does not in the least diminish, much less destroy, the
experiential value of the Law of Karma, and does not give countenance
to any immoral anti-nomi-anism, i.e., absence of (moral and other) law,
as that ' You may do what you like '. Of course, in a way, it does say
to the ' emancipated soul', ' You are/ree now, since you know, and are
therefore a law unto yourself, and you may do what you like ' , but it
also adds, ' but be prepared for the painful consequences of sin, for you
know them also. ' Every elder guardian, when handing over property to a
ward who has attained majority, says ; ' This is yours, to utilise or to
waste, as you please : you know the consequences of each way. 1
Sankhya says, ^JR^T 3?ft^ 3T53TO, (^TO ^T^R), ' cause is unmani-
fest, effect is its manifestation '. In other words, Undifferentiated Uncon-
scious is Cause ; differentiations are effects. All effects exist simultane-
ously in the Cause. The Unconscious Whole is the Cause of each part,
each 'conscious'. The Darshanas, ' views,' philosophies, up to Sankhya.
believe in the relation of cause and effect ; also that the former invariably
224 VEDANTA INVERTS ALL OTHER VIEWS [SC. OF
not the best. For, in strictness, the merest change,
the passing of something, a mere form, state, condition
only though it be, into nothing, and of nothing into
something, is impossible, impossible to understand. True
satisfaction is found only when we have reduced change
to changelessness. Then we see that there are no effects
and no causes, but only steadfastness, rock-fixed-ness.
Such steadfastness and shakelessness is its own necessity,
and requires no external support. We find it in the
Logiori, wherein all possible sense-impressions, all possible
conjunctions and disjunctions of Self and Not-Self,
are present once for all, and therefore in all possible
successions. These pseudo-infinite and mutually sub-
versive successions make up the multitudinous order
as well as disorder of Samsara, World- Process, which
is the Contents of the Logion. And the shadow of
the ever-present Necessity of the Logion, on each one
of these successions, is the fact, and the source, of
the belief about ' cause and effect,' * reason,' ' why/
' therefore,' etc. Each one of these successions, because
precedes and the latter succeeds. Vedanta does away with this, as with
all other views ordinarily held, by its v i v a r t a, inversion, of them all. It
cannot be said definitively that the cause ' precedes ' and the effect
' succeeds ' as a generalisation. The seed precedes and the tree
succeeds, no doubt ; but only in the sense of a particular seed and a
particular tree. Otherwise, the tree (another particular tree) precedes
and the seed (another particular seed) succeeds ; and the relation is
reversed. Therefore, you may say, in the case of any given event, not
that the cause precedes, but that what precedes is the cause ;
not that the effect succeeds, but that what succeeds is the effect. From
undifferentiated a-vyakta arises differentiated v y a k t a ; from chaos,
cosmos ; from the homogeneous, the heterogeneous; and vice versa ; and
this, necessarily, as a rule, not as an accident. This being so, it cannot
be said that such and such a thing is always necessarily cause, and
such and such another, effect.
P., CH. XI.] WHOLE, CAUSE OF EACH PART 225
included in the necessity of the Logion, appears as
necessary also, as a necessary relation of cause and effect.
Yet it never is in reality necessary, for every law has an
exception, and every exception is under another law, as
said before ; it is only an imitation of the One real
Necessity. The counterpart of this truth is that every
particular free-will, while not reality free at all, appears
free by imitation of the Absolute Free-will ; and Necessity
and Free-will obviously mean exactly the same thing in
the Absolute, Aham-Etat-Na, which is and includes the
totality of endless Becoming. 1 We may express the same
idea in other words, thus : Each one of the endless flow
of sense-impressions, of motions, of successions, is an
effect, of which the Totality of them is the One constant
Cause; or again, the Absolute, or the Uni-verse, is Its Own
Cause ; or, yet again, the necessity of the Nature of the
Triune Absolute is the One Cause of all the possible
variations, details, movements, which fall within and
make up that Tri-unity, all that endlessness of Becoming,
as One Effect.
The Whole is the Cause of each Part within it. This
is what we have to studiously realise in this connection,
in order to understand the nature of Cause, Necessity, or
Shakti-Energy. The simultaneous, the changeless, the
ever-complete, the Absolute, is the cause of the successive,
1 Consider the etymological meaning of ' automatic,' viz., 'self-
moved, ' ' self-willed, ' ' free-willed. ' But it has come to mean the reverse,
viz., ' mechanical,' ' non-free,' ' mechanically necessitated to work in a
certain way.' Autonomous is now used for ' self-determining,' ' self-
governing ', ' self -willing.' Both extremes meet in the Absolute Self.
15
226 AUTO-MATIC AND AUTONOMOUS [SC. OF
the changing, the partial, which, in its full totality as Not-
Self, is always contained within that Absolute. When
we so put it, the idea of causation presents no difficulty.
But it may be said that the difficulty disappears because
the essential idea of causation one thing preceding and
giving rise, by some inherent, mysterious, unintelligible
power, to another thing which succeeds is surreptitiously
subtracted from the problem. To this the reply is that
there is no such surreptitious subtraction, but an entirely
above-board abolition and refutation of that so-called
essential idea, and of every thing and fact that may be
supposed to be the basis and foundation of that idea. We
show that the idea of necessary causation, by some limited
thing, of some other limited thing, is only an illusion,
and a necessary illusion ; in the same way in which the
idea of any one of many individuals being a free agent,
having free-will, is an illusion, and a necessary illusion.
The one universal Self is free, obviously, because there
is nothing else to limit and compel it. Here the word
' free ' may, from one point of view, be well said to have
no significance at all ; but from another, it has a whole
world of significance. Now, because every self is the Self,
therefore it also must be free by inalienable birthright.
And yet, being limited, being hemmed in on all sides, by
an infinite number of other selves ; each of which is, like
itself, not only the Self, but also a self, because identified
with and limited by, a not-self; how can it be free? The
reconciliation is that every individual j I v a feels free, but
is not free ; it is free so far as it is the One Self, and it is
P., CH. Xl] THOUGHT AND THING 227
not free so far as it has made the ' mistake/ a - vi dy a, of
identifying itself with a piece of Not-Self. It is now
generally recognised, and so need not be proved in detail
here newly, that the idea of necessity, present in our idea
of causation, is a purely subjective factor ; not created by
anything or any experience ' outside ' of us (except in the
metaphysical sense in which the 4 subjective ' includes
the ' objective,' in which the * outside ' also is ' inside/
or, as said before, the ' without ' also is ' within ')/ The
outside world shows only a repeated succession, which
by itself is never sufficient to substantiate any notion of
invariable, inherent, necessary, power of causation. The
validity of ' inductive ' generalisations does not come from
1 * This is without, i.e., outside me,' and ' this is
within, i.e., inside me or my mind/ ' this is objective and this
is subjective,' ' this is tiling, this is thought, 9 ' this is ideal,
this is real % all these are thoughts, ideas, experiences, plays
or forms of consciousness which alone creates, and distin-
guishes between, both the factors of each of these pairs of
opposites. ' This is a thing, and not a thought ' is still a
thought. But the distinction is made, and therefore there
must be some truth in it also. The truth is twofold : (a) the
percept of only the individual consciousness is a ' thought,' is
ideal ' ; that of the universal consciousness is a * thing/ is
4 real ' (pp. 59, 189-190, supra) ; and (b) the relatively perma-
nent, intense, strong ' thought ' is a thing/ and the weak,
passing 'thought/ contradicted and abolished by other and
more permanent thoughts or things, is only a ' thought '. The
distinction of individual consciousness and universal consci-
ousness is made and grasped by the former identifying itself
with the latter, and then recognising that the former is
included in the latter, as part in whole. Cf. Hoffding,
Psychology, pp. 130,206,208; and Yoga- Vasishtha, gener-
ally, on bhavana-dardhya or vasana-ghanata
4 hardening of imagination ', ' density of desire '.
228 'DESTINY' is 'PAST KARMA' [sc. OF
the number of instances observed. Limited data cannot
yield unlimited conclusions. No addition or multipli-
cation of finites can make the Infinite. The element of
necessary validity in inductions is really a ' deductive '
fact ; as once, so ever ; as here, so everywhere ; because I,
that am now and here, am ever and everywhere. This
element of the idea comes from within us, from Self,
from our self as willing, as exercising a power of causa-
tion, from our indefeasible feeling of an exercise of free-
will ', though that again, because limited and dealing
1 The question of Free-will and Necessity is discussed in Samskrt
works, mostly in terms of d a i v a and p u r u s h a-k a r a, ' div-ine will" '
or * fate ' and * personal will ' or ' individual effort ', (' person ' and
' purusha ' are perhaps etymologically the same) ; and the siddhanta.
the ' established conclusion.' from the empirical standpoint, or v y a va-
harika d r. s h t i , the stand-point of the limited, finite, separative,
individualist ego, is, that what is called d a i v a is only accumulated
previous Karma operating as tendencies, habits, character, leading to-
corresponding opportunities or environments, etc.
Prayatna, vyavasaya, krti, are other words for effort,
determination, volition, as niyati, f^lRf, is another word for fate or
destiny. B a d d h a and m u k t a are well-known equivalents for ' bound '
and ' free ' ; d i s h t a is also used in the sense of ' pre-ordained ' . S v a-
tantra and para-tantra, sva-chhanda and para-
c h h'a nda, sv-adhina and par-adhlna, atma-vasha and
para-vasha, are pairs of words which express different aspects of the
same idea, viz , self-dependent and other-dependent, self-guided and
other-guided, self-governed and other-governed, self-willed and other-
willed, self-determined and other-determined. Cf. f ^
(Mahima-stuti) and * q^^ |:^ flEf 3?Tc*Wf ^f^ ' (Manu, iv, 106);
'The Lord's volitions are not controlled by others ', and ' Self-depen-
dence is bliss ; other-dependence is misery ' .
The word aham-kara, in Samskrt, stands for (a) a s m i t a,
4 1-am-ness,' egoism, the sense of separate individuality focussed and
concentrated by desire, emotion, vasana, trshna, libido, will-to-live ;
(6) 'I do, 1 'I make/ 'I act,' (free-will); (c) '/ am the doer, actor.
maker, of my own doings, etc., accompanied by elation, pride, arrogance,
P., CH. Xl] THE ONE TRUE SEEING 229
with the limited, the material, is naturally always
resolvable, on analysis and scrutiny, into material
forces. We thus see that the two ideas are intimately
connected, nay, are different aspects of the same fact the
idea of necesary causation and the idea of causation by
All the meanings are obviously closely allied. From the transcendental
metaphysical standpoint, the standpoint of the Eternal, Infinite, Univer-
sal One-Consciousness (of Aham-Etat-Na), or paramarthika-
d r s h 1 1, all are equally, and together, illusions. This is also a
siddhanta, or established conclusion, entirely in accord with the one
afore-mentioned. Cf.,
Glta t xvni, 61 ; iii, 27.
Following Skt. texts and observations may also be considered here.
Yoga-Bhashya says : tgcfiffc ^E^W^, ^Tlfhl ^ 3$&. Tn current
orthodox interpretation is different, but another permissible one is :
*&
|IH I ' To see the One in the Many, is the On(e)ly Right and True
View ; to see Many instead of One, is Illusion ' The former is the
' transcendental ', the latter the ' empirical ' or ' experiential ', view. The
former underlies n i - g a m a, deduction ; the latter, a n u - g a m a,
induction ; tarka, oranu-mana, negative or positive inference,
connects the two.
Param-arthika satta is ' essential reality of being, in the
true sense '. Vyava-hari'ka satta is ' practical, empirical, ex-
istence'. Prati-bhasika sattais 'illusive appearance, false
existence '. Strictly, the second and the third are the same ; they differ
in degree ; not m kind, as the first does.
In the Madhyamika system, of Maha-Yana Buddhism, sam-vrti-
s a t y a seems to be the equivalent of vyava-harika satta. The
word param-artha-satya, is common to the Madhyamika school
and Vedanta ; as, in fact, are, all important ideas and many other words.
230 PALRUSHA-KARMA-J>AIVA [SC. OF
free-will. 1 As the one is an illusion, so is the other,
neither more nor less. We can understand both, only
by understanding how the Changing is contained in the
Changeless that there is in reality no change ; that
Parana rtha-drshti may also be called sam-purna, or
samash t i-, or a n a n t a-, or sam a-, or s a many a-, or kendriya-,
drshti, in different aspects, i.e., the complete, or all-comprehending,
or infinite, or equal, or universal, or central, (centripetal) \iew. So
Vyava-hara-drshti would be k h a n d a-, or vyashti-, or
s-anta-, or, vis ham a-, or, vishesha-; or a pa - k < n d r a-,
drshti, ' the part-ial, or separative, or finite, or un-equal, or particular,
or" non-central (centrifugal), view.
Regarding these views, Maha-bharata says .
rc g 5TF|: $*
ferr:, wrra
3W Vl SgWip:, arita WTO \ Shanti p. ch. 239
Some call it p u r u s h a - k a, r a, human manly effort ; others d a i v a,
divine ordainment , yet others s v ab h a v a, (law of) nature. But the
fact is that the three, pa u rush a, karma, daiva, all three are in-
separable aspects of the same fact, with reference to p h a la , vrt t i.
and s v a - b h a v a, fruit (result of action), active movement (striving),
(law of) nature (which connects the two).
1 Note here, in these very words, how intimately contra-
dictions are blended together ; ambi-valence in uni-valence. In
one sense, the idea of necessary causation, i.e., causation by
an irresistible power, is based solely on our experience of
causation by our own unchecked free-will. In another sense,
necessary and free are the very opposite of each other. The
word ' auto-matic,' meaning 'mechanically necessary and
unavoidable,* and also 'self -moved/ i.e., * free/ finds reconcili-
ation for these two opposed senses only when Autos is
understood as the Great Self, whose ordinances are neces-
sarily unavoidable, because there is None-Else, even to op-
pose, much less compel. In a psychological sense, while each
choice, each exercise of so-called free-will, is determined by
the predominant motive, still, inasmuch as that motive is
nothing apart from or outside and independent of the moved
P., CH. Xl] WHY STRONGEST WISH IS FREE WILL 231
there is in reality no succedence an'd no precedence, but
only simultaneity ; no causation of one part by another
part, but only the un -arbitrary coexistence of all possible
parts, by the one Changeless Necessity of the Nature of
the Absolute ; and that whatever appears as a particular
necessity of any special Nation between one part and
another part is only an illusive reflection, appearing from
the standpoint of the particular parts concerned, of the
One in that particular ' many '. The Necessity of the
Changeless we can understand ; indeed we can under-
stand it so well that we are almost inclined to call it a
truism. The ' necessity ' of the ' changing ' is what we
cannot understand, and are very anxious to understand ;
but we can never understand it, in the way we imagine
and describe the fact of change to ourselves; because it
is the very reverse of a truism, its opposite extreme ; be-
cause it is false, not a fact ; because there is no change.
Only by understanding this can we understand the
individual, inasmuch as the j I v a or self entertains the
motive, identifies itself with it as its strongest wish, therefore
the individual self feels that it is making the choice, of itself,
by itself, i.e., of its own free-will, and actually does so. To
be guided by a motive is to be guided by oneself as identified
with that motive. From another standpoint, from which that
motive is not predominant (but some other is, as it must be,
necessarily, for individual existence means attachment to a
4 this ' and a corresponding wish or motive), it is regarded
as something outside the jiva, to be rejected and struggled
against, instead of being implicitly obeyed as one's very
inmost self. In Yoga and Theosophy, this other standpoint
which may be regarded as higher, is provided by the ' subtle *
body or sukshma-sharira as distinguished from the
s t h u 1 a or grosser ; these are dealt with in a later chapter.
232 THE SELF'S STANDING LIBRARY [SC. OF
whole situation, by reducing change to changelessness ; by
realising that, while, from the empirical standpoint of the
successive particular ' this-es ', there appears change,
from the transcendental standpoint of the universal Self,
it disappears altogether in the rock-like fixity of the
constant Negation of the whole Not-Self, i.e., of all the
parts of the many Not-Self, at once, by Self.
A slight illustration may perhaps help to make the
thought clearer. A large library contains billions of
different permutations and combinations of the words of
a language, each permutation or combination having a
connected serial as well as individual meaning. The
library, as a whole, contains all these at once in an ever-
complete and finished condition. Yet if any individual
character out of the thousands whose life-story the
library contains, endeavoured to picture out its own
life-story, realise it in every point, it would do so in what
would appear to it, from its own standpoint, only a suc-
cession. In the library of the universe, God's Mind, the
volumes are countless ; each volume, a life-story without
beginning or end ; sole author, the One Self ; readers,
pseudo-infinite in number and pseudo-eternal in time ;
they all also, only the Author Him-Self ; each volume,
again, tells only the same story, but in an order which is
different from that of every other. Each jlva-memory
too is such a library. Or take this other case, which
may come even nearer home. Each one of us is living
in the whole of his body, at every point of it, and at
every moment of time. But let him try to define,
P., CH. Xl] SOUL'S LIFE IN EACH BODY-CELL 233
to realise, to throw into distinct relief, his consciousness
of every one of these points of his body. So far as he
can do so at all, he will be able to do it only in succes-
sion. The whole of the universe, the whole of Not-Self,
is the body of Self. The latter lives in and at each
point of the former, completely, at once ; lives in the
way of innumerable mutually contradictory and therefore
counterbalancing and neutralising functions ; and it lives
in each one of these points in the same way as in every
other. Each point, to itself, therefore, seems to live, in
these innumerable ways and functions, in an endless suc-
cession which constitutes its sempiternal, un-dy-ing, life.
The nature of this endless Becoming, this endless
World -Pro cess, this cause and effect combined, is em-
bodied in t hat most common and most significant name of
Shakti-Energy, viz., Maya, even as the whole Nature of
the Absolute is embodied in the Pranava.
Maya, as explained by books on Tantra, 1 is ya-ma
reversed ; ya and ma 3 being two complete Samskrt words
1 ' White ' Tantra-shastra is a very important class of Samskrt
literature, of which only the veriest fragments are now extant. It
seems to have dealt with many departments of physical and super-
physical or occult science, especially in their bearing on yoga-practice.
Most of the books now available under the name of Tantra, are hodge-
podges of ViSdantic ideas and foul black magic practices and mystery-
mongering.
2 For another allied word, bhrama or bhranti, illusion, see foot-
note at p. 159, supra. J?f, Ma, is also the name for Lakshmi, the goddess
of wealth and splendour, the mother of Kama, Eros ; and another name
of Kama is Kan-darpa, meaning elator, ' arouser of pride ', and also the
opposite, ' breaker of pride.' The significance of this Puranic mythology
appears when we remember them in the terms of Yoga-sthra ; a-v i d-y a,
nescience, 'that which is not,' another form of m a-y a, gives birth to
asmi-ta, egoism, whence arise raga-dvesha, love-hate, and abhi-
nivesha, stubborn tenacity. JTT also means to measure, to limit;
234 THAT WHICH Is-Not [SC. OF
which mean, when put together as a sentence, ' that which
is not ; ' is as well as not, sad-asat, existent and not-
existent ; truly mysterious to the outer view. The extant
Tantra-books dealing with Shakti in a personal aspect,
give to it a hidden name consisting of the single letter
* i,' f, even as they call various other gods by single
letters. 1 This letter stands naturall)' between *a,'
3T and ' u,' 3, as should also * m,' ^ being only the
outer sheath of ' i/ though it is thrown to the end,
because of the fact that it appears as negation after
affirmation. But this ' i,' placed between ' a ' and * u,'
and ma-ya is thus only another form of JTT3T, m a t r a, matter, (see
pp. 173, 195, supra), it is the fimtising, limiting principle, which
makes the all-inclusive Universal appear as the separate, separatist,
egoistic, individual and particular. Matter, mother, mates, m*tmx t
mains, matr, m a t a, all are the same ; from Skt. ma, to measure;
n i r - m a , to make, create, manifest Matter measures Spirit, defines
it. sets limits to it, makes it manifest. So does the mother the child.
It may be noted that asm it a, * I-am-ness ', has three
stages of growth and development : (a) ' I -am ', sy am, ' may
I be ', ' mjty I continue to be ', ' may I always be ', ' may I
never cease to be ' ; (b) ' I am great ', b a h u s y a m, ' may I
be much more,' ' may I be greater than others ' ; (c) ' I am
many ', bahudha syam, ' may I be many and yet more
many ', * may I be more and more numerous '. In other
words, (a) self-preservation (by food), (6) self-enhancement
(by possessions), (c) self -multiplication (by progeny). In
yet other words, the appetites or urges of (a) hunger, (6)
acquisitiveness, (c) sex.
Love-hate and the tenacious clinging to that conglomerate
of thoughts, emotions, volitions, which makes up a separate-
feeling personality % or individuality or ego-complex, are
connected with and arise out of all these forms of egoism.
The subject is discussed at length in The Science of the
Emotions ; also in The Science of the Self.
1 See Tara-sara-Upanishat for instances.
P., CH. Xl] SKT. GRAMMAR'S FIRST APHORISM 235
coalesces with and disappears entirely into ' a,' in the
conjunction which brings out of the joined vowel-
sounds, 'a* and 'u,' the vowel-sound *o'; lor AUM
is pronounced as OM. } This is in accordance with the
grammatical rules, allowing of a double s a n d h i a (coales-
cence of letters), of archaic Samskrt, the deliberately
' well-constructed./ * polished,' 'refined,' ' perfected ' langu-
agq ; the complete grammar of which, if we only had it,
would show, as tradition says, in the articulate develop-
ment of vibration after vibration, sound after sound, letter
after letter, word after word, and sentence after sentence,
the corresponding articulate development of the vocal
apparatus, as well as of the world-system to which that
language belongs.' That this coalescence and disappear-
ance is just, is plain from all that has been said as to the
nature of Shakti, which ever hides in Self ; disappears
into Not-Self whenever Self acts 4 upon that Not-Self ;
1 This is taken from Pranava-vada, mentioned before. The very
first aphorism of Panmi's famous grammar is, 3?-f[-3'-0I ; the last letter
may be regarded as a blind or substitute for JJ^ ; so that the whole
aphorism is the exact equivalent of A-(I-)-U-M.
2 Instances of this are frequently met with in such ancient works as
Ram&yana, Mahabharata, and Puranas.
3 See on this point, works on Mantra -shastra, Nandikeshvara-
Karika, Aumk&ra-Sarvasva. etc.
4 This it does, it must be remembered, in the one single way of
lending to, and at the same time withdrawing from, the Not-Self, its own
being. STf ^ 3^' 3%3ftZ 3q*ffi: QW. I ' Purusha, Exed,
self-contained, like a spectator, witnesses Prakrti ' ; Sankhya-Karika,
verse 65. This beholding, this witnessing, this ''imaginative attention',
by Self, is the affirmation by it of Prakrti, Not-Self ; which affirma-
tion alone gives to it all the existence it has ; it is Consciousness which
energises and makes possible all the phenomena that physical science
236 . SHIVA AND SHAVA [SC. OF
and goes back again to Self , through and after Negation.
When we endeavour to consider it apart from the others,
it will still not be separated from ' m ' ; and then, too, it
will identify itself with the hidden affirmative, whereby
power manifests and appears forth, in many-formed
results and effects, rather than with the overt negative.
This has been indicated in exoteric Hinduism in the
relation between Shiva and his consort Gaurl ; Gauri, in
her many forms, is the implied and affirmative aspect of
ichchha, while Shiva is its overt aspect of abolition
and negation only l ; in His being, this Gaurl hides insepa-
rably as veritable half of His frame, so that hymns
addressed to Her declare that ' it is only when conjoined
with her, Primal Shakti, that Shiva becomes able to
prevail and energise ; otherwise, cannot stir at all V
deals .with , per contra, the not beholding, the turning the face away
from the dance, of Prakrti, by Self, is the negation by it of Prakrti ;
which negation amounts to sleep and pralaya ; it is the Principle of
Consciousness, in its form of Un-consciousness, (which, in practice, is
consciousness of something else) which ' dissolves ' the phenomena that
physical (including psycho-physical) science deals with.
1 %%, tfSffWl., ?fa flra: ; 'He who sleeps in all, is Shiva '.
^1=50%, 5% *ft: ; |, ^%-32nffr-H^-$Ff^-3ra^rr3%9 ; ' That
which goes is Gauh ; that which goes, pervades, produces (young),
desires, throws away, eats up, is I (== EE, as in ' see ') , She who does
all this is Gauh-i, Gaurl '.
I Saimdarya Lahan.
'Shiva, 1 fll^, minus f, i, is ' Shava ', Sftef y which means ' corpse, '
lifeless, powerless.
Strictly, destruction and negation belong to the Kara or Rudra
aspects of Shiva ; his creative aspect, in the Shaiva Agama, is called
Bhava (corresponding to Brahma of the Furanas), and his preservative
P., CH. Xl] THREE ASPECTS OF SHIVA 237
Because of its special connection with Negation is
this Necessity, this Shakti, treated of together with
Negation ; not as a fourth ultimate. This ever-present
Necessity, the very Nature of the triune Absolute, of the
succession of the World-Process, appears as, and is, that
which we call Shakti, Might, 1 Ability, Power, Force,
Energy, etc. In other words, as Negation is the Nature
of the Relation between Self and Not-Self, so this
Necessity, which inheres in the combination of the three,
and is not separable from any, may be regarded as the
Power of that Nature of Self and Not-Self which makes
inevitable that Relation. This Relation immediately
flows from, or better, is only another form of, that
Necessity, and the Necessity is therefore treated as being
more closely connected with the Relation, i.e.. Negation,
than with the other two factors of the Absolute. In this
Maya-Shakti we see repeated, the trinity of the Absolute,
the primal impress of which is always appearing and
reappearing endlessly everywhere. Each of the factors
of the Absolute repeats in itself, over again, that trinity,
in the shape of corresponding aspects. In Pratyag-atma,
aspect, Mrda (Vishnu) ; Shiva stands then for Brahma. Current pairs of
words are also Shiva-Shakti, Gauri-Shankara, Bhava-Bhavani, etc. But
Gauri (the White) has also her other aspect of Kali (the black) ; and
abolition of the world's turmoil is Shiva's Peace
ftffHT *Wt TO: ( Shiva-Mahima-stuti.
1 ' It may be,' ' may u be/ from shak, to be possible, to be able*
238 CORRESPONDENCES OF 3 SHAKTlS [SC. OF
Sat corresponds to Etat, the manifest seat of
action, whereby the existence of Self appears forth ;
Chit corresponds to Aham, which is the manifest seat of
knowledge ; and A n a n d a to Na (a s m i) wherein lies
the principle of affirmation-negation, attraction-repulsion,
i.e., desire (or want, as negation of fullness, followed by
fulfilment, as negation of want or lack or limitation). In
Mulaprakrti again, Rajas, mobility, corresponds to
Etat; Sattva, illumination, knowability, to Aham ;
and Tamas to Na(asmi), denial (of Self), darkness,
dullness, grossness, inertia, heaviness, clinging, material-
ity (opposite of Self), substantiality, possessability. In
the Maya-Shakti of Negation, the triplicity appears as
the energy of : (a) affirmation, attraction, enjoyability,
a-v a r a n a, enveloping, veiling, corresponding to Aham ;
(b) negation, repulsion, distraction, flinging away, v i -
k s h e p a, corresponding to Etat ; and (c) the revolu-
tion-process of alternation, balancing, samya, a p -
avarana, sa n-k shepa or prati-shthapana,
unveiling (the Truth) and steadying (the mind, establish-
ing it in the contemplation of the Truth), corresponding
to A nan da, the spiral dance of Shiva, tamas and
Na. 1 The meaning of this may become fuller and fuller
1 There is no current triplet of Samskrt words, like S a t - C h i d-
A n a n d a, or sattva-rajas-tamas, to express the three forms,
functions, or aspects, of Shakti spoken of in the text above. The words
used here, at least the first two of them, are met with in the extant works
of Advaita-Ve"danta, as describing the workings of Maya-Shakti, but in a
somewhat different sense, explained below. The powers of Srshti,
creation, emanation, throwing forth, Sthiti, maintenance, keeping
together, and Laya, or S a m h 5 r a, reabsorption, destruction, neutrali-
sation, balancing up, which are currently ascribed to Brahma, Vishnu,
and 1 Shiva, or rajas, sattva, and tamas, respectively, seem to mean the
P., CH. Xl] BLINDING, MISLEADING, RESTORING 239
as we proceed, for no work that endeavours to describe
the essence of the World-Process, can help imitating that
process (going round, and round) more or less, combining
the simultaneity of all and everything in the Absolute
with its gradual development in fuller and fuller re-
petition in the succession of ' the relative ' of the World-
Process.
same three aspects, in essence. Looked at in another way, s a m h a r a
would be reabsorption or attraction, sr. sh 1 1 would be throwing forth or
repulsion, and sthiti would be maintenance or the balancing of the
two. In this view, the correspondences of the triplets would also have
to be read differently. As to these variations, see the remarks in the
next chapter. Visarga, vikshlpa, ad an a, i e , ' throwing out, 1
' moving about,' ' taking back ', respectively is another triad of words
sometimes used to describe the kinds of Shakti. Static, kinetic, dynamic
may be regarded as another Shakti-Energy triad.
See also the note at the end of this chapter on the j n a n a -
ichchha-kriya s h a k t i s, mentioned in the Pur&nas and em-
phasised by the Shaiva school of practical and devotional religion-philos-
ophy. A v a r a n. a would then correspond to j n a n a (cognition, a v i d y a
and a s m i t a of Yoga) ; v i k s h 6 p a to k r i y a (action, the r a g a
and d v e s h a of Yoga) , and s a m y a (or 1 a y a of the quartet of
the hindrances to yoga-s a m a d h i mentioned in Vedanta-works, viz.,
k a s h a y a and ras-asvad a which may be regarded ab the un-
pleasant and pleasant or hateful and loving varieties of a va r a p a and
vi k she pa and lay a or sleep) toichchha lor desire, the abhi-
n i v e s h a of Yoga) .
The word ' correspond,' in the preceding sentence, means only that
a-varana (from vr, to cover up, to envelope), 'veil,' 'curtain 1 ,
'wrapping', 'cloak,' which blinds the intelligence, is of the nature of
'cognition ', but is wrong cognition ; ' I ', instead of knowing Self, and
knowing It-Self as Self, knows not-selves, and knows It-Self as a not-self.
So, vi-kshepa (from vi, intensive prefix, and kship, to fling), dis-
4 trac'-tion, at-'trac'-tion towards a wrong object, being drawn or flung
astray, corresponds to ' desire ' for a not-self, and includes appurtenant
' action ' also. To complete a triad, we may add s a m y a, equi-lib-ration,
or, perhaps better, sva-stha-ta, Sv mahimni prat i - s h thitih,
return to and abiding in Self, ' firm esta-blishment in the greatness
of Self.'
In plain everyday language, Maya is asm it a-k ama-k rodh a,
4 egoism (pride) -lust -hate, i.e., passionate egoistic desire which veils
(a-vrnoti) the eyes to the Truth, and then drags (v i-k s h i p a t i) the
so-blinded person into the wrong direction. A person, obsessed or
possessed and ridden by a mad desire, shuts his eyes to the truth of
240 VARIOUS TRIADS [SC. OF
This Maya-Shakti is said to be the p r a n a and
b u d d h i, * vitality and intelligence/ of all the world ; I
things, their due proportion, and the consequences of conduct; and
rushes insanely in pursuit of that object. The counter-actives of a-
varana and vi-kshrpa, attachment and infatuation, are v a i-ragy a
and abhyasa, detachment from the world of sense (by surfeit and
revulsion) and persistent practice of studious contemplation of Self (See
The Essential Unity of All Religions, pp. 326, 593-4, of second edn.).
The following beautiful lines of poetry occur on p 122 of The Mahat-
ma Letters; they seem to be Master K. H.'s own composition, and
are illuminative in this connection ;
" No curtain hides the Spheres Elysian,
Nor these poor shells of half transparent dust ,
For all that blinds the Spirit's vision
Is pride and hate and lust."
Shakti-tray a, ' triad of Shakti ', is referred to in the following
texts, among many ; they mostly mean the functions of creation-preserva-
tion-destruction ', the three chief forms of causation -effectuation :
Bhtlgavata, VIII. in, 28, II, iv, 12.
clPT ST^fa:, ^T^ISlfcfl^T,
ti, ch.238.
I Bhashya on Ganapatj-Atharva-Shirsha-Upanishat, at the
end of Ahnika-Chandnka
By the Law of Analogy, broad correspondences would be the triads
of pr ana-bud dhi-shari r a, biotic-mtelligent-physicochemical ener-
gies, o jas-sa has-balam, vital-intellect ual-mechamcal 6lan; sym-
pathic-cerebrospmal-muscular systems ; affectional-(plexal or glandular) -
sensor-motor organs , k a n d a s (c h a k r a s, p i t h a s) -j n a n e n d r i y a s-
karmendriyas ; Soma-Surya-Agm , i d a-p i n g a 1 a-s u s h u m n a
n a d i s, (left sympathic, right sympathic, spinal cord) ; and so on.
1 Symbolised as Radha and Durga respectively (vide Devi-Bhaga-
vatci, IX. ch. 50) corresponding to the motor and sensor nerves and
organs, karm-en<Jriyas and jnan-endriyas respectively.
P., CH. Xl] PRANA AND BUDDHI : MAHA-VIDYA 241
it is their whole wisdom and whole wealth ; it is the
power of desire for the maintenance of the world's things,
and also for their destruction. Many are its aspects and
corresponding names. One half of it that which appears
in the Affirmation, " I (am) this " is a-v i d y a, nescience,
error, illusion, imperfect knowledge, separative intellig-
ence, which binds the j I v a to the downward arc of the
wheel of S a m s a r a. The other half which is embo-
died in the Negation appears as v a i r a g y a and
vidya (or viveka, viveka-khyati) satiation with
the pleasures (and also the allied miseries) of the world,
and discriminative knowledge, clear understanding, of
the distinction between Eternal and Ephemeral, which
lead the same j I v a on to the upward arc of the
Wheel. In its completeness, it is Maha-Vidya, ful-
filled and perfected knowledge, unifying wisdom of
b u d d h i and * pure reason,' which frees the j I v a from
all bondage, makes of him an Ishvara (in the strict
and technical sense), and guides his life on that
second arc in that condition of yoga, union, of reason
with desire and .action, which makes the true free-will
of de-liberate conscious universal love and philan-
thropic activity ; and thus confers true liberty, true
m u k t i.
They who desire to grasp, or fling away, the things
of the world, physical or subtle, worship Shak{i in her
form of a-v Id y a, or v i d y a, respectively, in one or other
of their many aspects ; they who desire the wealth and
fullness of the Spirit, worship her asMaha-VicJyS
16
242 TWO MAIN PHILOSOPHIES-WORSHIPS [SC. OF
or P a r a m a- V i d y a, the Great Wisdom. 1 Each worship
leads on, in course of time, by cyclic necessity, to the
*U, WTOft, 1W, ft, 3$ !
W TO ?TO[ 33 3RSK 3?WJ , Mundaka Up p. 1 4.
As Philosophies may be broadly divided into those of Change and
those of the Changeless , and activities into egoistic and altruistic (the
division always being by predominant characteristic, never by exclusion
or abolition of the other, but only by subordination of the other) , so
Worships may be also broadly classified into those of Sagupa and those of
Nirgupa. Nir-gupa, the Attribute-less, is the Absolute , Its worship is the
steady realisation of Its nature, m and by (1) appropriate perpetual vision
of the Changeless, the Universal Self, (2) individual-self-denying, renun-
ciant, other-helping actions, (3) universal benevolence, constant
prayer for the peace, shanti, welfare of all. Sa-gupais 'possessed
of attributes ' ; It has as many glorified and magnified shapes as the
heart-desires and ideals of worshippers. As Nirguna is Shiva, ' Benevo-
lent Sleeper in all.' so Sagupa is essentially Shakti. ' Wakeful Power/
' Ability ' ; and all objects of worship and prayer, from the most
primitive fetish to the highest gods and ' madonnas ' and ' babies '
of the most splendid pantheons and the most elaborate mythologies,
are but embodiments, more or less concrete, of this Shakti ; and
all are as real as (neither more nor less real than) the individual
selves and heart-desires of the worshippers The worshippers
help the gods, and the gods the worshippers, with exchange of
appropriate ' nourishment ' , as between all the kingdoms of nature ; as,
indeed, between a worker and his ' instruments ' ; sometimes the ' instru-
ment ' is less than, in other cases far greater than, the individual
worker. (Vide Bhagavad-Git&, vii, 21, and iii, 11.) Prayer is only the
endeavour of a weaker will to put itself en rapport with, to identify
itself with, and so draw nourishment and power from, a stronger Will, a
greater source of Power.
P r ft p a-p r a t i-s h t h a, ' esta-blishment of p r a p a, life ' , in an
image ; vivification, vita-lisation, of it by mind-force, intense thought-
concentration ; by means of j a p a, (litany), etc., is a-v a h a n a, 4 invi-
tation, bringing in' , n i r - m a p a, ' formation '. of a good or a bad spirit.
<Jevaorkr.tya, good or bad elemental (or elementary) ; (see Mahattna
Letters, Index-references, for distinction between the two) ; which spirit
is as much an instrument (only more living) as an engine, a gun, a
factory, a steamship, a human or animal servant.
P., CH. Xl] SHAKTI AND MtlLA-PRAKRTl 243
next. The worship of Maba-Vi<}ya is the same as the
worship of Shakti's consort, Pratyag-Atma, whose supre-
macy She ever insists on, and in dutiful and loving
subordination to whom, and for the fulfilment of whose
universal law of compassion to all selves, She as
Gayatri, mother of V&Ias, wisdom-illumined will that
knows how to draw upon the inexhaustible stores of
Nature (Shakti herself) confides high sciences and powers
gradually to the j I v a s walking on the Path of Renuncia-
tion, for the humble service and helping of all fellow-
j I v a s.
One point should be specially noted here. As there
is confusion in extant Samskrt works between Pratyag-
Atma and Param-Atma, so there is also confusion as
regards Shakti and MQla-Prakrti or Prakrtf. And the
confusion is not unnatural. Because Shakti is con-
nect-ed with, con-/s-ed in, both Pratyag-Atma and Mula-
Prakrti, and is herself hidden, there is a natural tendency
to regard her only as the one or the other. Throughout
Devi-Bhagavata, for instance, she is now identified with
As regards the two main classes of ' worship/ u p - S s a n a ; here
too we have the same perpetual swing between the two ; the worship
appropriate to n i - v r 1 1 i, Rennuciation, and the worship belonging to
pra-vrtti, Pursuit. "All ' new ' religions are only re-forms ; from multi-
farious ' idol '-worships and sectarianisms towards tmi-tarianism and
solidarity. So, Buddha taught philosophical religion, by reaction against
the numerous more or less gross and vicious sects and worships that were
prevalent. But again, by reaction against Buddha's emphasis on the simple
life and asceticism, ending in nir-vapa ('extinction'); by reaction
against this, began the worship of thousands of images of Buddha, and
installation of these in great temples, and luxurious ceremonial. This
culminated in the worship of hundreds of varieties of Taras, female
goddesses, and, ultimately, the Bachhanalian orgies and horrors of
Vajra-Yana. Each object of worship, god or goddess, is but an
apotheosis and anthropomorphisation of a desire, good or evil.
244 SAME AND YET NOT SAME [SC. OF
Self, mentioned under the epithet of Shiva, and now
with Mula-Prakrti. Thus, Shakti, personified, is made to
say : * Always are He and I the same ; never is there any
difference betwixt us. What He is, that am I ; what
I am, that is He ; difference is due only to perversion
of thought.' But the distinction is also pointed out at
the same time : * He who knows the very subtle distinc-
tion between us two, he is truly wise, he will be freed
from S a m s a r a, he is freed in truth.' ! Again it is
said : ' At the beginning of creation, there were born
two S h a k 1 i s, viz., P r a n a and B u d d h i, from
Sam v it, Consciousness, wearing the form of Mula-
Prakrti.' J Of course it is true, in the deepest sense, that
Shakti is not different from the Absolute, but only Its
very own Nature, S v a b h a v a ; and, as Mula Prakrti
is included in the Absolute, therefore Shakti may also
be identified with Mula-Prakrti, without which it
cannot manifest and truly would not be. At the
same time it is desirable and profitable to make the
distinction even though a distinction without a differ-
ence from the standpoint of the limited, wherein
thought must be and move, and has deliberately to be
fil ^: I
3 &IWt 3^^, ^TT^ OTR: I HI, vi 2, 3.
I IX, 1. 6, 7.
P., CH. Xl] . PARA AND APARA PRAKRTIS 245
and move, taken in its partial, * perverted,' successive,
form. The fact, Also, that the words are different, and
are used not always interchangeably but often differently,
implies that a distinction is intended between Shakti and
Prakrti.
In Glta? also, Krshna speaks of his Daiv! Maya,
dur-atyaya, ' difficult to cross, 1 ' difficult to escape and
transcend'; his Daivi Prakrti, divine nature or
power ; and again of his two Prakrti s, apara, lower,
and para, higher, the former of which, he says, consists
of the various elements which Sahkhya describes as issuing
from Mula-prakrti, while the latter is j.Iva-bhuta, (the
life of) the * jlvas that uphold and carry on the work of
the world '. The meaning of such passages would
probably be easier to follow if what has been said above
as to the nature of Self, Not-Self, and Energy which is
the Necessity of the Nature of these two, is borne in
mind. As avidya, this primal Energy turns more
towards Not- Self and becomes apara-prakrti, which
name is used to cover not only the force which leads the
j i v a outwards, but also the objective manifestations of
Not-Self which it especially brings out, and into which
it leads the j I v a. As v i d y a, it turns more towards Self,
and is para-prakrt i, the source of subjective life; nay,
which, as consciousness, in Self, of Not-Self, is life, and
so includes all jlvas. 2 As the two together, she is
1 Bhagavad-Glta, vii, 14 ; ix, 13 ; vii, 5.
a For another aspect of the fact indicated, that is to say, another
interpretation of the verse, which, however, is perfectly consistent with
this, and brings out only another aspect of the truth, see the NOTE
following this chapter.
246 ASPECTS OF DAIVI PRAKRTI . [SC. OF
Daivi-Prakrti, in which vi(Jya and avidya
coalesce into Maha-vidya, regarded not as know-
ledge, but rather as Shakti, Energy, which utilises all-
knowledge, for the carrying on of the World-Process.
NOTE. This note is intended as a continuation of the
foot-notes at pp. 167, 190, 191, 229, above, in connection with
b u d d h i and m a n a s, and with the triads of (i) s a t, c h i \ f
an and a, (ii) sattva, rajas, tarn as, and (iii) srshti,
s J h i t i, 1 a y a. The first two of these triads, and those of (tv)
jfiana, ichchha, kriya, and (v) d r a v y a, g u $ a,
karma, are, as indicated in the text of this and other works,
of essential importance for clearing up much obscurity and
confusion in Samskrt literature, and for understanding the
whole scheme of the World- Process. The correspondences
with each other, of the various factors of these triplets, hav^
been pointed out here, and have been dealt with in detail in
Praqava-vada. But they are argued here on their inherent
merits, and, so far, have not been supported by 'testimony *
from current Samskrt- works.
It is true that if, as is claimed here, metaphysics; are no
less * self-evident ' than mathematics, no ' testimony ' is
needed for the conclusions of the former, any more than for
those of the latter. But the claim is obviously not admitted
by very many. Also, while solutions of simpler problems of
mathematics are undoubtedly clear of themselves at every
step, yet when we come to more complex ones, even veterans
of the science are not unof ten glad to have their work checked
and verified by others. With this idea the following collection
of quotations and references is given here.
As said before, the triads belonging to Prajyag-atma and
Mula-prakrji repectively, viz., sat-chid-ananda and
sattva-rajas-Jamas, especially the latter, are to be
found at every turn in the old books. But the vitally important
triad belonging to Shakti as Cause or K a r a n a, viz., j n a n a-
ichchha-kriya, is, for some reason, rare. So also is that
which belongs to Shakti as Condition or N i m i 1 1 a, viz..
P., CH. Xl] FOUR BASIC TRIADS 247
desha-kala-kriya, or Space-Time- Motion ; k r i y a here
being sometimes replaced by a v a s t h a or krama or h 6 J u
or n i m i t 1 a, so that the triplet becomes equivalent to
place-time-circumstance. Yet without its due application
in the work of interpretation, the ideas, facts and laws, of
Brahma- vidy 5. and Atma-vidya, metaphysic and psychology, do
not become a-p a r - o k s h a, directly experienced'; do not come
home ; are not realised in the first person. Even in the fanjra-
literature of the Shakja school, the present writer has been in-
formed by friends learned therein, Shakti is usually referred
to as t r i - g u n a, and its three forms of subdivisions are
mentioned only as satjviki, rajas 1, and t am a si
s h a k t i s. It is therefore desirable to gather together, for
the purpose of confirming, with additional confidence ' the
reasoned faith* of the reader, by means of * trustworthy testi-
mony ' out of the experience of the ancients, these rare state-
ments, scattered here and there over distant parts of Samskjt
literature.
The correspondences may first be tabulated for convenient
reference.
Chit Sattva Jnann Guna
Sat Rajas Kriya Karma
Ananda Tamas Ichchha Dravya
The first triad belongs to Universal Consciousness; the
second to Universal Matter ; the third, to individualised con-
sciousness : the fourth to particularised matter. It is rather
curious that none of the earliest, best known, and most studied
* major * ten Upanishats mentions sattva-rajas-famas express-
ly. If we include two more among the ' major ', viz., Shvi%-
ashvatara and Kaushltaki, as is sometimes done, because
Shankar-acharya has commented on them, then we find that
Shvet.-ashvatara uses the word tri-gu ij a, without separately
naming the three ; but Shankara names them as the three.
The same Upanishat says that ' the s v a-b h a v i k a s h a k t i
of the Supreme is triple, jnana-bala-kriyft: here clearly,
b a 1 a, ' power ', ' strength ', stands for i c h c h h a, desire-
force (see Shveta., iv. 5 ; v. 5-12; vi. 2-4, 8). Among the
later ' minor ' Upanishats, Jabala, Krishqa, Rama-Purva-
Tapani, Nada, Tripad-vibhuti-Narayaija, Maitst, Maitrtyt,
250 THIRTY-FIVE MILLION NERVES [SC. OF
equated with pashyantl ; yet i c h c h h a sits midway too
between j fi a n a and k r i y a.
, VII. ch. 32.
' The Supreme Being, whose garment is *sat-chi(J-anan(Ja',
appears densified by karma in a material body, which becomes
the locus of the attributes or faculties of cognition -desire-
action '.
, "PI 1,
3
i ibid., ch 35
Goraksha, Muktf-sop&na.
' Nirukta. VII. ii, i ; See also Gtt&, xv r 12.
The purport of these last quotations is that ' out of thirty-
five millions of nerves in the human body, ten are chief ; out
of these ten, three are the most vitally important, viz.> i d a,
p i n g a 1 a, and sushumna, which respectively run along
left, right, and middle of the spinal column, and corres-
pond with Chandra, Surya, and Agni (i.e., Moon, Sun, and
P., CH. Xl] THREE PRINCIPAL DEITIES 251
Fire, or middle, upper, and lower, orbhuvah, svah, and
b h u h , or astral, mental, and physical worlds respectively),
and with ichchha,jnana, and k r i y a '.
: TO
! DeviBhag, XII, ch. 4.
=OTfN?Tr I Ibid.. XII, ch. 4.
* Thou art sung as the Nature of Mahan-Atma, (Mahat-
Buddhi) ; thou art hymned as Shabala- Brahma, in Balanced
Repose : thou art also the Supreme Might beyond all. Thou
givest us ichchhd-kriya-jnana.'
(ii) The succeeding extracts show the correspondences of
iksha kama t a pana, jnana ichchha kriyd, with jn^na
bala kriya, SarSsvati K&li Lakshmi, chit Snanda sat,
sattva t^mas rajas, Vishrjiu Rudra (Shiva) Brahmft, and
Sukshma kdrana sthula (i.e., astro-mental causal- -physi-
cal) bodies, respectively.
Guptavatf-tlka on Durg&-sapta-shatl.
ft f^sg?4 snfa i
76 iW. on Rahasya-^arya.
252 THREE DEITIES & THREE BODIES (_ sc - OF
%?: f fpfrrctttifr fl I ptvi-Bhag.. XII, viii.
Jnana-ichchha-kriya correspond to vijnanamaya-mano-
maya-praijamaya koshas and Isha-Sutra-Virat or Sarvajna-
Hiranyagarbha-Vaishvanara and Prajna-Taijasa-Vishvanara
also. (See Vedanta-sara, and Advanced Text Book of
Sanatana Dharma, p. 170).
ir ^?^ hriOT, ?f^ri srf: rei 7 ^^ . ni,
f fe
I Nilakantha, Tefed on above,
How can Maha^Kali and Rudra, the Destructive Aspect,
be connected with Ananda, Joy ? Joy results from fulfilment
of Desire : and Desire is Hate as well as Love. The Victor
in battle triumphs and rejoices. Rudra and Kali are usually
represented as dancing ; macabre though that dancing be.
(iii) The same correspondences are supported by the
following, with the further statement that creation preser-
vation destruction (srshti sthiti laya) belong to rajas
sattva tamas respectively-
cTT: R: I Qevi, Bh&g, I, ii.
: i ibid., i,
P., CH. Xl] NE-SCIENCE & TRUE-SCIENCE 253
(iv) Shakti as sa-guna, " possessed of properties,' ' in
operation, 1 ' functioning,' ' kinetic,' and as a-vidya, ne-science,
error, passion, is the object of adoration to the * pursuant/ those
whose minds are turned world-wards ; (in all the thousands
of different forms of objects of devotion which persons worship
in any time or clime, in accord with their particular shades of
heart-desire and stages of intellectual development). As
nir-guna, * functionless,' static, and as vidya, true-science, true-
knowledge, realisation, she is revered by the renunciant, who
wants ' Self-dependence, ' the supreme bliss of moksha, the
liberty of the H igher Self, * freedom ' from ' dependence on an-
Other,' which dependence on another (the lower self) is the
supreme misery. The worship of nirguna Shakti is the same
as the worship of Shiva (the Supreme Self), who also is said,
in Puraijic symbology, to bestow moksha. Many schools of
thinkers and devotional systems of votaries give her many
names: ' Tapas, Tamas, Jada, A-jnana, Maya, Pradhana,
Prakrti, Shakti, Aja, Vi-marsha, A-vidyS ; and so on. None is
despised for lacking Vishnu or Rudra ; everyone is scorned
who lacks Shakti-Power. She is also known as Mahd-M&yd,
Niyati, Mohini, Prakrti, V&sand, Bhuvan-eshvari, the Meaning
of Pranava, the Desire of the Infinite ',
sftf cir
g fum: i ibid., \, viu.
: 4fl3T: ^il^^fif^r: i ibid., v,
qf
f fcF,
OT ^ST, 3?^cT 1 *OT% I Madhava, Sarva-
Darshana-Sangraha. * Purpa-prajfia-parshana '.
For other verses, whose purport is given above, see p. 218,
supra. Many other names of Chiti-Shakti-Superconsciousness
are given in the 5th ch. of Maha Upanishat, which is part of
Yoga Vasishtha.
254 THREE GUNAS & THREE YOGAS [SC. OF
(v) Artha-shakfa (arthyat, ' that which is desired ', is
arfcha, object, purpose, intention, the thing meant, etc.),
and dravya-shakti, substance,' the desired object), are used
in the following, in substitution for, and as synonymous with,
ichchha-shakti. Bala, strength, power, as a synonym for
ichchha, we have noted before ; bhakti is also used as such.
., Ill, vii.
Vishnu-BhZg., II, v.
V*., Ill, x.
; 5?
.. XI, xx.
P., CH. Xl] 'NEUTRAL WITNESS OF THE THREE 255
The last three verses say that jfiana-yoga, the yoga-
method of philosophical meditation, suits those whose tem-
perament is not that of the men of action, who do not like
restless activity ; for persons of the opposite temperament,
karma-yoga, the regulated performance of duties and of acts
of self-sacrifice, is the best way of achieving the purpose of
life ; for the man of the midway, or emotional, temperament,
who is neither greatly attached to, nor strongly detached from,
the world, the method of devotion, bhakti-yoga, is the best.
The following verses express the same main ideas in a different
setting.
aft %5, sratfcf sitwq; I Ibid., iv,
.. xi. xiv.
SWT,
Ibid.. IV. xxxi.
, iii.
(vi) The sensor organs express buddhi and jnana-shakti ;
the motor-organs, prana and kriya-shakti.
i ibid., m,
i Ibid.. III. xxvi
It should be noted that, in this chapter of the Bhaga-
vata, occurs another verse, which says that kriya-shakti
belongs to aham-kara, whereas our conclusion is that ichchha-
sbak^i is its proper co-efficient or function or power. This
is only one of the many inconsistencies and perplexities
which seem to beset the question. But it is not impos-
sible to solve the inconsistencies and disentangle the
256 PREPONDERANCE MIDST INSEPARABLES [SC. OF
perplexities, by careful reference to different viewpoints. The
fifth chapter of Maha Upanishat, above alluded to, says
that the same functioning appears now as manas, now as
buddhi, again as ahamkara. In the ' subtle regions ' of mind,
even broad distinctions are difficult to fix, because all is
always in a fluid condition, continual flow and flux. In this
very instance, the ahamkara which is said to possess kriya-
shakti seems to be what, in the last section of this note, is
called manas in contradistinction from mah at -buddhi ; and
it is said to have three subdivisions, vaikarika-manas, taijasa-
buddhi, and tamasa-bhutadi, which last is ahamkara proper.
Vedanta-sara assigns antah-karana to sukshma-sharira (also
called t a iJ asa i n the individual form and sutratma in the
universal) ; makes it consist of the three koshas, viz., vijnana-
maya, mano-maya, and prafla-maya ; and assigns to these, the
jnana, ichchha, and kriya shaktis, respectively.
(vii) The three, sattva rajas tamas, are utterly in-
separable though distinguishable ; they manifest by turns,
one preponderating, the others subordinated, at any one time
and place. ' They suppress, support, produce, also, one
another, by turns, and always cling on to each other '.
Brahmaputra, II, iv, 22.
3*:>
: I Cita, XMH, 40
., III. vm.
Sahkhya-Karika, 12. See also Anugtfa, xxi.
(viii) The characteristics, properties, functions, conse-
quences, implications, allies, corollaries, etc., of sattva rajas
P., CH. Xl] A-J$ANA IS UN-REASON 257
tamas are very numerous ; in fact, all phenomena whatever
are classifiable under these three. The more important ones
are mentioned in Bhagavad-Glta, chs. xiv, xvii, xviii ;
Anugita, chs. xxi to xxviii ; Manu, ch. xii. There are
many seeming incongruities in these statements ; but they
are mostly reconcilable by the view that sattva corresponds
to jnana- knowledge, rajas to kriya-action, and tamas to
ichchha-desire. Obscurity is greatest with regard to the last,
appropriately enough, one might say, for one of the principal
meanings of tamas is obscurity, darkness ! Thus,
*W Slffi, W. ^tf, cWhSTSTftret^ I Khazavata, XI, xxii.
4 Sattva is jnana ; rajas is karma ; ' quite plain and
simple ; but * tamas is called a-jnana,' not ichchha, straight.
In order to make sure that a-jnana is the same as ichchha
here, one has to go a roundabout way.
: I S S Vimars/nni, i, 2.
4 Ajnana is mala, seed of samsara ' ; it is obviously the
same as a-vidya. The synonyms of a-jnana, given in one of
the quotations in (iv) above, help to show that it stands for
ichchha.
Bhagavad-Glta, (iii, 37, vii, 27; x, 11 ; xiv, 517), is
perplexing. ( It puts together : (a) sattva, nirmalatva or
freedom from impurity, prakasha or illumination, an-amaya or
freedom from disease, sukha or joy, jnana or knowledge ;
(6) rajas, raga or attachment, trshna or thirst for life, karma
or action, lobha or greed, pravrtti or activity, arambhah
karmaQam or initiation of new actions and enterprises,
ashamah or restlessness, sprha or desire (whether emulous
or envious), duhkha or pain ; (c) tamas, ajfiana or ne-science,
ignorance, error, moha or confusion and blind clinging, avarana
or veiling, pramada or carelessness, inadvertence, a-lasya
or indolence, nidrfl or sleep, a-prakflsha or non-illumination,
and a-pravritti or non -enterprise, dis-inclination. About the
alliances of sattva here, there is no difficulty. The connection
of rajas with raga, trshrjia, lobha, requires explanation ; the text
says, in full, that rajas is rdgatmaka, 'ensouled by attachment/
is trshna-sanga-samudbhava, ' is born of, or gives birth to,
17
258 UN-REASON IS DESIRE [SC- OF
addiction to the thirst for life, the will to live,' and ' rajaso
lobhah sanjayatje,' * greed is born from rajas '. The reconcilia-
tion may be found in these turns of phrase. Pra-mada seems
to be derived from the same root as the English word
' madness '. Its fellow-derivatives are madana, the ' mad-
dener* or Eros-Cupid, mada or pride, also intoxication, un-mada
or madness, madya, alcohol, etc. Mohana has an allied sense
also. Tamas, a-jnana, a-vidya, moha, pra-mada, avarana, mala,
etc., all stand for blind clinging, obstinate arbitrary desire*
which throws a veil over the luminous eye of reason, blinds it,
overpowers knowledge, is thoughtless, capricious, un-reason-
able, is, in fact, the very essence of un-reason, a-jnana. Love-
Hate, Desire, Passion, is obviously arbitrary Un- Reason.
Unreasoning passion, as Love, creates ; as Hate, destroys :
Reason only mediates, mantains, brings about sthiti or
palana, preserves, keeps up some sort of balance between the
two, helps to make law and order : as Vishnu-sattva between
Brahma-rajas and Rudra-tamas.
Tamas and moha sometimes mean unconsciousness,
swooning, and slumber. In excessive ' perplexity ' over con-
flicting desires and interests, ' not-knowing ' what to do,
persons faint away, and then they come out of that trance or
slumber with some one desire preponderating. A moment of
moha or laya, oblivion, ' the waters of Lethe, 1 intervenes at
every change of ' heart, 1 every change of strong desires or
states of being, or worlds or planes, every birth-and-death,
avarana-vikshepa, and constitutes an initiation, a dlksha,
in which the jlva dives into the Infinite Self or store-house
of Desire- Energy and energies, and then emerges with a
' new * experience, of success or failure, a power gained or
lost. The moment of ' confusion ' experienced by one learning
to swim, between the imminent drowning and the sudden
floating at ease, is a familiar illustration.
Some other helpful texts are,
ffR,
I Manu. xii, 24-26, 38.
P., CH. Xl] FOKMS OF UN-REASON 259
ffi: ;
, cW: %fcf ;
Rhavishya Pitrana, Madhyama Parva, Bhaga 1, ch. 1 ;
Kurma Pu ra na , Purva , ch . 11.
T ^T: fiPIT: I MWi. Shanti, ch. 157,
* Sattva corresponds to jnana and dharma ; rajas to rdga-
dvesha and artha ; t amas to a-jnana and kama. Each
preceding one is higher and better ; dharma is best and should
ever be clung to. Love, hate, infatuation, elation, pride,
like, dislike, sorrow, burning jealousy at another's prosperity
all this is Un-reason ; as also all sinful actions '.
Foot-Note 2, p. 136, of Secret Doctrine, vol. I, says, quot-
ing K. P. Telang's translation of the 3 Gita-s (S. B. E. series).
" The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara
renders Antah-karana, refined by sacrifices and other sanctify-
ing operations. In Katha, . . . Sattva is rendered by Shankara
to mean Buddhi a common use of the word." To this H. P. B,
adds, " Whatever meaning various schools may give the term,
Sattva is the name given among Occuk students of the/
Aryasanga School, to the dual Monad or Atma-Buddhi, and
At ma -Buddhi on this plane corresponds to Prabrahman and
Mulaprakrti on the higher plane."
(ix) The three functions or properties and characteristics
of sattva, rajas, and tamas are stated more specifically and
categorically in the following, in connection with drifta
or mind.
Tl f| 5n?TT-S?lff1-f^rfrT-5ft5J^l?t f5T3Nl I Yoga-bhashya, I
an: i /*.. n, is.
STIR: I ibid., n, 28.
TOR! ^ SRft ^ 3tiPn * 'ITW I Gita. xiv, 22.
260 EXPLANATIONS, RECONCILIATIONS [SC. OF
Sankhya-Karika , 12. See also 13.
: \
S&nkhya-tattva-kaumudi, 12.
l I Rhagnvata, III, xxvi
i ibid , vm, m.
ft:, ^Nrq Wfl:, 3TTETC<Jr 3??f?%: I
Foot-note to Shiva-sutra-vimarshini, ni, I
' The function of buddhi-satfcva is prakasha or prakhya,
illumination, making known, priti, cheerful joyous affection
and satisfaction, shanta-ta, peacefulness ; of manas-rajas,
is pravrtti, chanchalya, kriya, restless enterprising activity,
a-priti, discontent, ghora-ta, vehemence, dire-ness ; of aham-
kara-tanias, is s^hiti, niyama, avarana, steady obstinate clinging
to one thing and veiling of other things, with a regularly fixed
purpose, and also vishada and moha, cheerless desolate
yearning and pining, mudha, perplexed and confused as to
the truth, the right course of action, and as to whether the
heart's desire will or will not be gained.'
(See also my Yogct-Concordance-Dictioucrry, pub. 1938 ;
references and explanations under chitta, pravrtti, sthitji.
kriya, prakhya, etc.)
The three inseparable but distinguishable aspects or
faculties of chitta or mind, the single * internal organ,'
antah-karana, (in contact with the five external aud at least
seemingly separate five sense-organs and five motor-
organs), are buddhi (or mahat), aham-kSra, and manas.
Chitta is the summation of the three. It is, in fact, the soul
with three functions, the psychical ' individual,' corresponding
to the body with three properties (i.e., sensable qualities,
substantiality, movement), the physical * singular,' viz., the
anu or atom of which Bhagavata (II, xi) says :
Sgcf:
WHS!:
P., CH. Xl] THE ULTIMATE IN-DIVIS-IBLE 261
" The ultimate indivisible ' particular,' ' many ', i.e.,
multitudinous, but uncompounded, i.e., each separate from
all others, whence arises men's illusory notion of the ' final
unit ' or the singular is the paramanu." (See also Vaisheshika-
Sutra, I, ii, 3, 6, for sum mum genus and final singular or
particular, or " infima species ').
For all practical purposes, this chi^ta of Yoga is
manas of Nyaya, its sinjplarising, finitising, principle,
principle of ' attention,' of the hot place in consciousness '
(in William James' phrase), of focus in the field of consci-
ousness, which is the cause of the actuality of ' one knowledge
only at a time,' Nyaya SUtra, III, ii, 56-62 ; 'while buddhi
is the cause of the possibility of all knowledges simultaneously
included in that infinite field ; but this 'comprehensive ' kshetra-
jna quality of buddhi is not clearly brought out in current
Nyaya and Vaisheshika works ; some of these later works how-
ever distinguish two kinds of cognition, anubhava and smrfi,
i.e., direct perception and memorial ; and the latter is said to
cover all three divisions of time, while the former is confined
to the present.
Vedanta speaks of * the tetrad of the inner organ, an^ah-
karaoa-chatushtaya, viz, manas buddhi ahamkara chitta ;
Sankbya, of mahat (or buddhi) ahamkara manas ; Yoga/
of chitta with three shila-s or characteristics ; Nyaya mentions
buddhi and manas separately (Sutra, I, i, 9), makes jnana or
cognition (together with other phenomena) a * mark ' or
characteristic of Atma (I, i, 10), identifies jnana with buddjii
(I, i, 15), and states the distinguishing characteristic of manas
to be prevention of more than one * knowledge ' (or ' ex-
perience ') occurring at one time (I, i, 16). But Nyaya-
Bhashya (on I, i, 16) says : " Memory, reasoning, acceptance
of testimony, doubt, intuition, dreaming, jnana or knowledge,
inferential conjecture, experience of pleasure, desire, etc., are
' marks ' of manas ; and besides these, also this one peculiarly,
viz., the non-occurrence of more than one * knowledge ' at a
time." And Nyaya-vartika-tatparya-tlka (on the same) seems
to identify buddhi (which as said above is expressly declared
in the sutra to be identical with jSana) with manas, thus,
I fsajctS^stf^ sPTrqT IR
262 FUNCTIONS-FACULTIES OF MIND [SC. OK
The reconciliation and explanation of all these may be
found in the statements that,
, in, l r
i: \
Spanda-karika-vwrti, iv, 20.
* Chi^ta consists of buddhi ahamkara manas,' ' which
make up the ' inner organ ' ; and of these, manas expresses
rajas; ahamkara, tamas ; and buddhi, sattva.'
3?rc??F 3?0j;^l: I S. S. Vtmarslnni, in, 1.
I Ibid., Appendix, iv
/6^., i, 13.
I Yoga-Vasishtha, Chudala-upakhyana,
' This three-functioned mind or chitta is anu, atomic,
because it ' breathes/ aniti, expands and contracts, and keeps
moving^ incessantly, ata^i, and hence is called the atma-jiva-
aiju ; Atma, really Omnipresent, therefore motionless, appears
as moving (atatO when, colored by <fes*Ve-vasana, it puts on
a-khyati (a-vidya, a-jnana), non-knowledge or forgetfulness
of Its-Own-Nature, and, instead of Omnipresent, becomes
arjiu, a limited atom ; when enveloped in the triple organ
and the five t^n-matras, it is the experiencer-chitta ; this
sheathing is due to desire, will to live : the essence and
core of mind may well be said to be desire ' ; while,
no doubt, the three aspects of the mind are co-equal, yet>
if a * distinction between the prophets ' may be made at
all, we would have to say that very soul of soul is
desire ; for desire, emotion, the ruling passion, makes the
individuality, the peculiarity and character of the person,
is the individualising, finitising, characterising, distinguishing
P., CH. XIJ DESIRE-FORCE AS JIVA-S
principle ; any given person feels his separate existence most
fully and keenly when he is expressing & particular emotion
most intensely ; creation of krtyas, (Tibetan tulku) ' arti-
ficial ' elementals and deVas, by means of mantras, i.e.,
manana, ideation, with intense desire, is only an illustration of
this fact, as also the theosophical doctrine of ' individualising '
of souls from lower into human kingdom under stress of
intense emotion, like ' crystallisation ' under stress of chemico-
physical forces corresponding to emotions ; ' desire is the
shakti par excellence, shakti -tama ; ' cognition and action
are shakfis only with the energy borrowed from desire.
This is also the significance of the otherwise somewhat
obscure verse,
3?it
I Git ft, vii, 5.
' My para or higher prakrti is that which manifests as
jivas, souls, individuals (of countless grades of definition,
group-souls, etc., one within another), and thereby carries on
and upholds this moving world. 1 In other words, this para-
prakrti is much the same as Daivi-prakrti or Shakti, energy,
force ; and apara-prakrfi is Mula-prakrti, matter. The three
gunas, in different aspects, belong to both, as indeed also to
Spirit or Pratyagatma.
Energy, force, power, though abstract, in a general sense,
yet always manifests as, in, and through, concrete ' indivi-
duals,' human and non-human. Hence inevitable mor-
phisation of the one Ajma-Shakti, in many degrees of defini-
tion, first into prafika-s, nature-forces of the Vedas, Agni,
Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Surya etc., distinguished by functions,
without ascription of any sharply-defined concrete human or
other shapes ; and then into pratima-s, more concretely
anthropomorphic deities of PurUnas, with well-defined but
changeable shapes in subtler matter, as abhimani devatas,
ruling over and guiding (not so much intellectually as vitally
and inspi rationally) masses of corresponding ' nature-spirits '
of all kinds, made of subtler or superphysical matter, or con-
sisting of vegetable and animal bacteria and bacilli (yak-
shafli and rakshamsi after whom human or semi-human
264 SINGULAR AND UNIVERSAL IDENTICAL [SC. OF
races of yaksha-s and rakshasa-s seem to be named, because
of the prevalence *-of such microbes in their bodies), as also
' animal- souls ' of masses of animals and men ; and finally
into quite human and historic deities, avataras, of Puranas
and other national legends and sagas, ruling more intellectually
(comparatively) ' rational -souls ' of masses of men.
The already-quoted verses of Bhagavata (VIII, ii),
speaking of ' triple Shakft, of the nature of I-feeling, egoism,'
indicate the same thing as the Gfa-verse.
This aham-dhlh, 1 -feeling, is aham-kara of S&rikhya and
Vedanta, and asmita of Yoga, which is but the second stage,
phase, or form of a-vi$ya, primal Error, by which the
Infinite illusorily regards itself as a finite ' body, 1 an * atom/
and ' finitises ' itself.
This aiju, or * a$ava-mala/ ' atom stain ' or * atom-sub-
stance ', takes the place, as the third subdivision of energy,
viz., samya, mentioned on p. 238, supra, from a different
standpoint.
SP-I,
: I Shwa-SHtra-Vi.. i, 3.
We have seen above that manas, chitta, or jiva is aiju :
Upanishats repeatedly declare that Brahman , Supreme
A^ma, is * larger than the largest and smaller than the
smallest/ is infinite and infinitesimal both, (the word for
1 large/ viz., mahan, having a special fullness of significance
which will appear m a moment). We have also seen that one
of the quotations above, from Bhagavata, expressly says that
the ' atom/ the ' final singular/ is ' many ' and yet also the
cause of the illusion of singularity, ' oneness/ i.e., of many
ones. A quotation from Spanda-kartka-vtvrti will help to
show how ' extremes meet/ and not only meet but are
identical. /
3 ! W*!^ ?lcyJJH 5
P., CH. Xl] MIND IS WORLD-PROCESS 265
1 In transcendental and supreme experience, oneness
or identity is not distinguishable from * separate ' (or rather
complete and perfect) singularity (kevalata, of yoga). Sepa-
rate-singularity which has no fringe of uncertainty of any
kind about it, cannot be distinguished from true (universal)
oneness ; and vice versa. In that supreme experience, the
broad firmament, all-bearing earth, ambient air, blazing sun,
rolling oceans, rushing rivers, ever-receding quarters of space
all these are seen to be but portions, projected without, of
the one my * internal organ * within" i.e., they are all seen
as constituents of the One impartible Consciousness which
has illusorily divided itself up into a ' without ' and a ' within f .
* Empirical ' and ' universal ' Ego are identical. Following
verses of Yoga Vasishtha, 111. ch. 84, are to same effect.
SSRt, tf
: , ST
* The Chit-element in chifta, is seed of omniscience ;
the Jada-element in it, is all this Jagat, moving illusion.
Chitta, mind, contains all the World-Process within itself. It
should be reflected upon, controlled, cultivated, refined '.
After all, is it not literally true, that every experience,
and all that is contained or implied in it and by it, all its
contents, is a mood of mind, a vr$i of antah-kararjia, i.e n of
the Self identified with, or imagining It-Self as, an^antah-
karana ? To think, to say, * this is my-selfs experience, that
266 ASPECTS OF MIND [SC. OF
is another-Self f s experience, this mountain is outside of Me '
is not all this, My experience or thought ? Is not all distin-
guishing of one-Self and another-Self, together with both the
thus distinguished selves, within the One Self which distin-
guishes ? Indeed there is Only One Self which includes all
selves and all not -selves, all thoughts and all things, all sub-
jects and all objects.
It may be mentioned incidentally, that Pranava-Vada
makes abam-kara the summation of chitta-buddhi- manas,
instead of chitta the summation of ahamkara and the two
others. As said before, this implies only a slight difference of
standpoint, an emphasis on aham rather than on kara.
(x) A few quotations regarding the three ' faculties ' or
' functions ' of this * inner organ ' may help to make the
subject clearer.
It is true that the ancient works lay stress on the indi-
visible oneness of mind, manas, in all its psychoses i.e., the
psyche's functionmgs, moods, modes ; thus,
: fft: *ft: *
3$ *T*f ^4 I Brhad-'Aranyaka, 1, v, 3.
' Love and passionate desire, resolve, doubt, faith, dis-
belief, patience, impatience, modesty, clear insight, fear all
these are but manas, mind/ These psychoses (mind's func-
tions, mentations), are typical of the scores mentioned in
different works of various schools of philosophy ; e.g., alo-
chana, pure sensation, and pratyaksha, perception (which are
the basis of all other mental operations, 3WE* ac<jfNr ifo:,
as said, in Sctnkhya Karikti, 30, and S^RNCf Slftfa:, in Nyaya-
bhashya, I, i, 8), adhyavasaya, or ascertainment, abhimana,
egoistic desire, sankalpa or vyavasaya, resolve, viparyaya or
viparyasa, error, samshaya, doubt, vikalpa, imagination,
svapna, dreaming, nidra, sleep, praty-avamarsha or praty-
abhijna, recognition, ichchha, desire, raga, liking, dvsha, dis-
liking, krti, volition, abhi-sandhi, determination, anubhava,
experience, presentation, smrti, memory, etc. all these are
only moods of the one mind. "
P., CH. Xl] NAMES VARY WITH FUNCTIONINGS 267
*rf&ct
*
(
J?ift '
Upanishat and
' Self -born Brahma spreads out the worlds by Manas.
Wherever there is sankalpa-ideation, there is Manas at work.
There is no difference between the two. When ideation
268 ALL OF ONE AND SAME MIND [SC. OF
ceases, Self AJ-One remains. It is indicated by such names as
Atma. By and in ideation, Space-Time-Motion appear, and
Chit-consciousness becomes Kshetra-jna, cogniser of the ' field ',
the ' This '. Ideating vasana-desires, it becomes " aham-kara '-
ego-ism ; that, making determinations, free of doubt, a-kalanki,
becomes ' bu(J(Jhi ' ; that, forming an ' image ', becomes
' manas ' : that, densifying, crystallising, becomes indriyas,
sensor-and-motor-organs ; these make up the body. Thus the
jiva-soul, binding itself with bonds, like the silkworm im-
prisoning itself in a cocoon spun by itself, falls lower and
lower into denser and denser matter. This one and the
same Manas- Mind, according to its various functionings, is
named now * manas ', now * buddhi ', now ' jnana ', again
' ichchha ', then ' kriya ', now ' aham-k^ra ', now ' chitta ', or
prakrji, or m^yfl, or malam, or karma, bandha, puri-ashtaka,
or a-vidy3. All these are but various names of various
functionings of one and the same ideating Manas- Mind '.
Still it is possible to distinguish three broad classes of
functionings among these phenomena.
%%,
T<*ntr-aloka, ix.
I Prashna Upanishat, iv, 8.
Sahkhya-Karika. 23, 24. 37.
Shabda-kalpa-druma, art. Antahkara^a.
P., CH. Xl] SAMSKRT EQUIVALENTS 269
W g g^frowf^, cf^r ^ ^ iw
3 cT^Kcli ^H I pM-Bh**<r t VII., xxxii.
So far there is no difficulty. There is a clear consensus
in the above texts, that buddhi is that faculty of the mind
whose function is to ascertain facts, adhyavasdya, bodha, syati,
nishchaya ; aham-kara, to ego-ise, to connect all experiences
with self, to reduce them to the sake of the selfishly-desiring
self, abhimSna, sam-rambha, mati, garva ; manas, to resolve
upon which course to follow between doubtful alternatives,
kalpana, mantavya, eshanS, ichchha, klrpti, samshaya or san-
kalpa-vikalpa ; chitta, to memorise, to connect before and
after, past and present and future, and also all the three, in
itself, smarana, anu-sandhana. Clearly the three first corres-
pond to jnana, ichchha, kriya. But when we seek for direct
texts, we find some perplexing inconsistency here as in the
case of sattva, etc., (vide section viii, supra, of this note, and
the references to Git a). Thus, .
fe: but
(It should be noted that the quotations from K^shmira
Shaiva works, throughout this Note, are all taken from
Mr. J. C. Chatter ji's excellent publications under the auspices
of the Kashmir State.)
In these lines jfiana sattva baddhi are brought together
all right ; but kriyS and manas are joined to tamas instead of
rajas ; and ichchha and ahamkSra are allied to rajas instead
of tamas. Spanda-karika-vivrti (iv, 20), however, as we
have seen in section ix, supra, of this note^assigns the corres-
pondences rightly. Vatsyayana, Kama-sutra. I, ii, 44, uses
abhimana in the sense of desire, expressly.
\
(This sentence is repeated in Kautalya, Artha-shastra,
I, vi.)
270 MEANING OF ABHI-MANA [SC. OF
c King Dandaka, desiring lustfully to violate the
daughter of the IJshi Bhargava, was destroyed with all his
kith and kin, and all his kingdom was laid waste and became
dense jungle '. Valmiki, Ramayana t has a verse which uses
the word in the same sense : Does the king's son carefully
avoid lusting after the wives of others ? '.
We may, on the whole, take the following to be the net
result. Buddhi is the principle or faculty of cognition, know-
ing, understanding, intellection, reason, which ascertains and
decides, * this is so ' ; it corresponds to sattva ; Samskrt
names for its operations are , adhyavasaya, nishchaya,
bodha, jfiana, upa-labdhi, etc. Aham-kara is the ptinciple or
faculty of desiring (whereby the separateness of one-self is
primarily accentuated), wishing (willing being, so to say, mid-
way between wishing and acting), and of self -reference, indivi-
duation, personalisation, egoism, hence self-complacence,
pride, etc. ; it corresponds to tamas ; Samskrt words for its
functionings are ichchha, abhi-mana, sam-rambha, garva,
eshana (in the sense of vasana, craving, etc.). Manas is the
principle or faculty of action, volition, conation, determination
(of what to do), resolve (after vacillation), attention (after
distraction) ; it corresponds to rajas ; Samskrt words for
its activities are kriya, esharjia, (in the sense of seeking, anu-
eshafla, going after), samshaya-vimarsha, sankalpa-vikalpa.
Chitta is the summation of the three, with the special feature
or function of memory (and expectation), connecting before
and after ; Samskrt words here are chefayate, smaraijam,
anu-san-dhanam. The name chitta, for individual mind or soul,
is appropriately formed from the root-word Chit which
means consciousness generally, Ch6tana, Chiti. The Univer-
sal Consciouness or Chit, including all time, past, present, and
future, is obviously the locus and the means of all memory.
A portion, a slab, so to say, of this Universal Conscious-
ness, gathered into a separate aggregate, with a definite
reach backward and forward in time, becomes a chitta J in this
individual ' memory ' and an individual is but a ' memory,'
a biography, a number of experiences in a certain order, so
that individuality is lost and disappears, when, and to the
P., CH. Xl] PERPETUAL GYRATION OF THE THKEB 271
extent that, memory is lost and disappars the three other
functions, of buddhi, etc,, are all incorporated/
The order of succession and rotation of the three classes
of psychoses, cognitive, affective, conative, is indicated in the
following :
I Mbh. t Shfintt, ch. 204.
' Out of knowledge arises desire ; out of desire, krti (or
prayatna), I.e., volition : out of that, effort ; out of that,
action.' * First conies knowledge (of a thing) ; then the wish
to obtain it ; then the purposeful effort, abhi-sandhi ; then the
action ; then the fruit.'
knows ; then ?**, desires ; then ^, endea-
vours this is one of the commonplaces of Nyaya. It is obvious
that intention, purpose, will, volition, conation, innervation,
exertion, muscular effort, are all intermediate states of transi-
tion from desire to action.
In Pura^ic mythical and anthropomorphic symbology,
for purposes of concrete devotional worship, Vasudeva-Krshrja
(an incarnation of Vishnu-sattva, representing knowledge,
wisdom) ; his brother Sankarshana-Bala-rama (of Rudra-
tamas, representing the anger-half of desire) ; his son Pra-
dyumna (of Kama-Eros, representing the love-half thereof) ;
and his grandson A-niruddha (the ' unrestrained/ representing
action, rajas), stand, respectively, for chitta, buddhi or mahat,
the two subdivisions (anger and love) of ahamkara, and for
manas respectively (Bhagavata, III, xxvi.)
For a description and illustration of the inhibitive, veiling,
blinding, (dvaraQa), distracting, diverting, selective, mis-
directive and incentive, (vik N shepa), preserving, steadying,
(sthiti), fixing and regulating (niyama) effects of feeling,
passion-desire-unreason, and of its connection with tamas,
see Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, ch. VI, 7. Thus,
". . . Feeling itself may have a hindering effect . . . But the
272 INTERMEDIATE STAGES [SC. OF
step once taken, feeling is the faithful guardian of what has
been acquired. Then its inertia" (tamas) "is of use to
knowledge" (sattva), etc. (See also Herbert Spencer, Psy-
chology, vol. I, p. 110).
(Some more notes, which had gathered on the margins
of my personal copy of the previous editions of this book,
may be incorporated here).
Nyaya
:, TO:, ^
I Aitareya. in, 2.
' Smrti, memory, has the past for object ; mati, expecta-
tion, opinion, the future, the corning ; buddhi, perception, the
present, that which is immediately before it ; pra-jna, the
higher mentation, thinking, ranges over and covers, simultane-
ously, all three divisions of time '. ' Wish to hear i.e., to
learn, scientific curiosity ', attentive listening i.e. absorption
of knowledge, apprehension, retention, inferential reasoning
and acceptance of a fact, (similar) rejection or refutation (of
an alleged fact), understanding of purport and purpose,
knowledge or grasp of the essential truth (of a subject) these
are the eight functions of dhih, intelligence ' ; (from dha, to
place, to do, to deposit ; dhiyante pad-arthah asyam iti
dhih, that in which all meanings of words, i.e., notions of
things meant by words, are deposited ; dhi is a synonym
for buddhi). Sensation, perception, concrete or factual
knowledge, abstract thought or conceptual knowledge
or generalisation, retentive intelligence, view (or outlook,
doctrine), resolute fortitude (or determination), opinion,
independence of mind, propensity, memory or recollection,
imaginative ideation, volition, asu or praya or innervation
(of a motor organ or muscle, with nerve-energy, by volitional
P., CH. Xl] MIND IS BRAHMA, IS ALL 273
effort for action), kflma-desire, vasha- capability or will-power
all these are only different names (of different aspects or
functions) of pra-jnana-consciousness '.
*Rt f| ^ir^T, ^^ f?
f| 5T^I, *W: 3Tr^ ?fcf I Chhandogya, vii, 3. f^frj %cl^ I vh. 5.
' By manas-mind, man resolves, ' may I study mantras ',
and studies ; ' may I do (such-and-such) acts ', and does ;
' may I desire children and domestic animals, and (the joys
and riches of) this world and also the next ', and desires ;
manas is the soul, the Self, is all this world (i.e. 9 all these
worlds, all this, all objects) ; it is Brahma ; manas should be
meditated on, propitiated, worshipped, given devotion to (i.e. 9
should be purified, elevated, strengthened) ' ; ' Chitta re-
members '.
The same three functions, jnana-ichchha-kriya, cognition-
desire-action, with the fourth all -connecting all-including
memory -expectation -consciousness, are clearly indicated in
these sentences of the Chhandogya. Incidentally, it may
be noted that Plato, in Republic, Bk. iv, (Jowett's translation),
distinguishes " three principles of the Soul, Reason, Desire,
and Passion or Spirit or Anger " ; which is very feeble ; in
view of what Indian tradition says, from Upanishats down-
wards ; " passion or spirit or anger " is only one part of
' desire ', and " reason " only one part of ' cognition ', and
1 volition-action ' is not discerned and counted at all by Plato.
Mbh. t Shanti-parva, chs : 238, 254, 258, (also 203, 268,
281, and others) say :
TO
18
274 ' MAY THIS MY MIND BE HOLY ' [SC. OF
' Mab at -Manas manifested first, fast-rushing, far -travel-
ling, ever-going, desiring-and-doubting (affirming-and-denying,
imagining-and-effacing). ' . . . ' Beyond Manas is buddhi ;
beyond buddhi is At ma/ ... * When buddhi undergoes
emotion or any definite functioning with reference to a
specific object, it becomes manas.' . . . Buddhi determines,
resolves, ascertains, makes sure ; manas expounds, specifies. 1
There is a grand hymn to Manas, of six mantras (verses),
in Yajur- V6da, which emphasises the all-enmeshing quality
and speed of the mind :
Jr w: ftrawssq
sww,
' This Mind of mine, which wanders far when (I am)
awake, and comes back (to me) when (I am) asleep ; which
is the one Light of lights ; which is known as pra-jfiana and
chetas and dhrti, (knowledge, desire-memory, and will-vohtion-
action), Immortal Inner Light of all living beings, without
which nothing can be done, which encompasses all past,
present, and future worlds, in which are interwoven all the
minds of all beings may that Mind of mine ever ideate holy
thoughts, ever function auspiciously, beneficently '.
Chitta has been said in some of the above texts, to
connect all three divisions of time. As memory, it is cognition
of an object with the additional cognition of ' past-ness ', in
the sequence of its experience ; as expectation, of future-ness ;
as direct perception, of presentness ; (see The Mahatma
Letters, p. 194, re Time). Other texts assign the same
power to prajna ; others to buddhi ; they ascribe reasoning
also to the two : it is obvious that reasoning, inference,
proceeds from past experience to future similar experience,
connects memory and expectation. The incessant flow and
P., CH. Xl] GROUP-INDIVIDUALITY 275
flux, the kaleidoscopic assumptions of ever new forms and
figures by the very same few pieces of differently coloured
glass, which goes on perpetually in these subtle regions of
the mind, has been referred to before; each function passes
into another, imperceptibly as it were. Compare the
statement in The Mahatma Letters, p. 187 : " As no two
men, not even two photographs of the same person, nor yet
two leaves, resemble, line for line, each other, so no two states
in Deva-chan are like ". But this does not mean that the
states cannot be grouped into great broad classes. Clouds
at sunset in the rains are never still, are ever changing their
shapes and colors ; but the main seven colors, or the three yet
more primary ones, are always there, and distinguishable.
Deva-chan, (? Tibetan for Skt. Deva- jana or Deva-sthSna, god-
world) Svar-ga, (* where sva, Self, goes ')> may be said to be
the Dream-world par excellence) ; all mano-maya and vijSana-
maya ; but of waking dreams, so to say, vivid, ' real ' ; sva,
Self, Mind, has much more control over Matter there ; Matter
is much more plastic.
Incidentally ; the fuller the comprehension of the Nature
of Mind and mental processes, the clearer will be understood
the teachings of the Masters, as regards after-death states
of normals and abnormals, suicides, ' accident-killed ',
elementanes, ghosts, shells, lower principles, higher principles,
disjunctions of the principles from, and fresh conjunctions
with, each other, etc. Each individual flowing into and out
of all others ; individual within and without other individuals :
the principle of individuality-Manyness as well as all indi-
viduals, within the Principle of Universality and the One-
Universal this seems to be the key to the problems of
personal as well as Impersonal Immortality and all subsidiary
questions ; the subject will come up for treatment again, later
on. In this connection, an extract from Herodotus (History,
Bk. IV, ch. 184), which is referred to in the Secret Doctrine
(iv, 331) will be found suggestive :" around another salt-hill
and spring of water, dwell a people called the Atarantians,
who alone of all nations are destitute of names. The title
of Atarantians [Atlanteans] is borne by the whole race in
common ; but the men have no particular names of their
own. . . . Near the salt is a mountain called Atlas, . . .
276 SCATTERED VS. ONE-POINTED WILL [SC. OF
so-lofty ... the natives called it ' the Pillar of Heaven ',
and they themselves take their name from it, being called
Atlantes ..." A group of persons, not having any dis-
tinctive, differentiating, particular names, everyone being
known as and called * Atarantian ', presumably had some sort
of a ' group-individuality ' also ; somthiug like that of herds
of herbivores, or the populations of termitariurns and bee-hives.
In the last-quoted Mbh. text, occurs the word vy-ava-
saya. Ordinarily, it means resolution, determination, in the
actional sense, rather than the cogmtional ; f.i. Gitjci, ii, 41 ;
* The resolute, determined, buddhi, wtll,is one-pointed, single-
minded, keeps one aim before it (and therefore acts, and
achieves that aim) ; while the irresolute ones dream of many
objects and fritter away their energy in endless vague plans \
Here, by vyavasaya is meant * determination to act ' rather
than ' ascertainment of fact '. The cognitional sense is usually
expressed by adhy-ava-saya, as in many of the other texts
quoted above. The word vy-a-karana has now come techni-
cally to mean grammar ; because grammar " specifies ' and
' limits ' the proper use of language.
Abhi-mana and its derivatives, as meaning ego-ising, self-
referring self-emphasising, self-asserting, prideful, overbear-
ing desire, occur in the following texts :
ssfft
. qjrfqf
P., CH. Xl] EGO-ISTIC PROUD DESIRE 277
Mbh , Shanti, chs. 308. 309, 310.
' This Mahan-Atma, for the sake of Krida, Play, abhi-
manyati, puts upon Him-Self, takes on, a-buddhi, a-vidya f
i-e., Prakrti, with its three gunas ; enters into these countless
yoni-s, species of Jiving things, identifies It-Self with Its
companion, its garment inside which it dwells ; and thinks
[note these words] " I am Not anything Else than this
body * ! ( instead of thinking its whole Thought, " than
My-Self " ) ; th'us, it abhi-manyati, imagines, as attached
to It-self, all these outer garments, vastrSni, made up of sattva-
rajas-tamas, dharma-artha-kama, [note the correct order] ; It
thinks " I am all these", " all these are in me ", these indriyas,
sensor-motor-organs which make up this body. Thus the
Infinite abhi-manyate, desirefully imagines It-Self to be
finite ".
' May I be so-and-so, I am so-and-so ' this imposition
of other things upon Self is abhi-inana.
* The essence of chiti is re-cognition, prati-ava-marsha,
ability to recognise that this is the same as was perceived
before. It gathers up and preserves and holds all experiences '.
, 5fR% ^
1 Mbh. Shanti, ch. 427 ; also chs. 108, 180, 316, 317, 357; Ann-gift,
ch. 26 ; Vdyu Pur&na Sjshti Prakarapa, ch. iv ; etc. :
278 ALTRU-ISTIC RENUNCIANT'S SOCIALISM [SC. OF
(See also Durga-Sapta- Shaft, and my Manava-Dharma-
Sarah, in which these and other synonyms, and names
according with transformations during gradual manifestation,
vyakta-pary-aya and aham-kara-pary-aya, of Mind-Brahma,
are repeated over and over again, and explained etymologically ;
whereby the transformations become intelligible).
We have seen before (pp. 121 131) how certain texts
play, in riddle, with the word anyat. Another text of the
same kind occurs in Mbh., Shanti, ch. 325 :
It occurs in the course of a great debate between the lady
Sphilosopher-yogini) Sulabha and king Dharma-dhvaj a Janaka
of the famous dynasty of Janakas, philosopher-kings, also
known as vi-deha ; one of whom, Sira-dhvaja Janaka, was the
father of Sita and father-in-law of Rama). Dharma-dhvaja
was a disciple of the Sankhya Teacher Pancha-Shikha. The
text quoted has a different meaning, in the immediate
context ; but that meaning is of no particular significance ;
the other interpretation, of deep significance, is also possible
here, as in the other cases (pp. 121 131), and is appropriate
also, in view of the nature of the whole discussion on
' philosophy, in theory and in practical daily life '.
r ' arfiw*ft '
Valmiki, Ramayana, II ch. 88, 2429.
' Enemies never harbour any proud desire to attack the
kingdom of Ayodhya (even after Rama has gone away to the
forests, on his four teen -years' exile, because it is guarded by
his fame, and the fame of the good and strong government
established there) ; they avoid it like poisoned food '.
I Bhfigavata.
1 (For the renunciant sanyasi) necessary food is the only
right possession ; he who desires more is as a thief, and
should be punished '.
P., CH. Xl] FACULTY-PSYCHOLOGY 279
These additional texts will, it is hoped, enable the reader
to judge more confidently the import and the correspondences
of the three factors of the several triads which have been
dealt with in this note.
The word * faculties ' has been used above wittingly. It
is true that modern western text -books profess to have given
up the old ' faculty-psychology ' ; and the abandonment is
justifiable, but with reservations. We have seen above that
the ancient Upanishats strongly affirm the indivisible unity of
the mind ; but that does not entail the avoidance of all classi-
fication of psychical phenomena, and of the consequent
discernment of corresponding 'powers/ shakes, i.e., ' faculties,'
in the soul. The doctrine of ' faculties ' was run to an extreme.
There ought not to be a running to the opposite extreme. It
has been pointed out that the three functions of the mind are
distinguishable but not separable. From this it does not
follow that the word * faculties ' should not be used in con-
nection with the mind ; for ' faculties ' may also be regarded
as distinguishable but not separable. Strictly, prthaktva,
separateness, separability, complete and perfect, does not
exist even in the realm of matter : for the most utterly separate-
seeming pieces of matter are found, on scrutiny, to be floating
in and connected together by a subtler kind of matter of which
these separate-seeming pieces are, directly, or indirectly some
sort of condensation. The organs of audition, vision, etc., may
be said to be separate, but scarcely the ' faculties ' thereof, which
all inhere, as ' powers/ in the indivisible soul. And even this
separateness of the organs is not quite perfect separateness.
Even physically they are connected together by nerves. And
in abnormal psychical states, persons have ' seen ' with
the ' navel/ while their eyes were tightly closed and band-
aged ; and * optophones ' have been recently invented. The
indication is that the potentialities of all kinds of sensations
are present in all the sensor-nerves on the general principle
that all is everywhere and always though one potency pre-
ponderates and has become act-ual in one special nerve ; as is
easy to understand when we remember that evolutionists have
ascertained that all the sensor ies have differentiated out of
one primal nerve of ' touch ' (as moderns say ; of * audi-
tion/ as ancients say, though some verses of Anw-Gf/3,
280 SEPARABLE AND INDISTINGUISHABLE [SC. OF
which refer to sparsha-vidyut, c touch-electricity,* seem to
lend some support to the modern view also). We have
also to remember that, with progress of psycho-physical
research and discovery in the ' localisation of functions/ it is
being established more and more clearly, every day, that certain
nerve-parts, nerve- tissues, nerve-lobes, and ganglia, pre-
ponderantly serve as channels and organs of one or another
of the three main functions of the mind ; so that the ' inner
organ ' is beginning to be seen as not wholly dissimilar from
the outer organs ; and vice verse.
In short, the distinction between ' distinguishability ' and
' separability ' too, is but one of degree, ultimately ; for buddhi,
which ' distinguishes,' is itself jada, ' unconscious,' being a
transformation of Prakr^i, or Root-matter, as Sankhya says ;
and Prakrfci again is but an ' idea,' in turn, an ' eject ' and
* project ' of Consciousness, made of veritable Conscious-stuff ;
' without ' and ' within ' being facets of the same ; appear-
ance of contrast and opposition here also being only illusory,
such as underlies all dvam-dvam, pairs of opposed relatives,
of the World- Process ; while Continuity, Organic Unity, and,
finally, complete Unity and Identity of all (in One Universal
Consciousness, imag-in-ing all -things al-ways) is the real fact. 1
(xi) Finally, the difference or distinction between Buddhi
and Manas may be indicated from a somewhat different
standpoint.
Bergson among recent philosophers in the West is
specially noted for having pointedly drawn attention anew to
the fact, latterly tending largely to be overlooked there, " that
deeper than any intellectual bond which binds a conscious
creature to the reality in which it lives and which it may
come to know, there is a vital bond ". " Our knowledge rests
1 In one way, Sankhya may be said to go beyond the extremist
''behaviourists' of Pavlov's and Watson's (Russian and U. S. American)
Schools ; but the very great difference between the two is that Sankhya
affirms ' mind ' as a fact, though material ; while the latter regard it
as an illusion, as non-est, and thus stultify their own opinions and
minds ; for they would be also only * conditioned reflexes ' , therefore
liable to change with changed conditions, therefore unreliable and
untrue.
P., CH. Xl] INTUITION AND INTELLECTION 281
on an intuition which is not, at least which is never purely,
intellectual. This intuition is of the very essence of life,
and the intellect is formed from it by life, or is one of the
forms that life has given to it in order to direct the activity
and serve the purpose of the living beings that are endowed
with it." " Kowledge is for life and not life for knowledge."
" One thing is certain, that if you are convinced by this or
any other philosophy, it is because you have entered into it
by sympathy, and not because you have weighed its argu-
ments as a set of abstract propositions." " Consciousness of
living is the intuition of life." " Reality is life." " Why is
there any realitv at all ? Why does something exist rather
than nothing ? Why is there an order in reality rather than
disorder ? When we characterise reality as life, the question
seems so much more pressing, for the subject of it seems so
much fuller of content, than when we set over, against one
another, bare, abstract categories, like the being and nothing
that Hegel declared to be identical. It seems easy to imagine
that life might cease and then nothing would remain. In this
way we come to picture to ourselves a nought spread out
beneath reality, a reality that has come to be and that might
cease to be, and then again there would be nought. This idea
of an absolute nothing is a false idea, arising from an illusion
of the understanding. 1 \bsolute nothing is unthinkable. The
problems that arise out of the idea we seem to have of it are
unmeaning . . ." "Why, at ordinary times, does it seem so
certain that it is material things that endure, and that time
is a mechanical play of things that themselves do not change ?
It is due to two fundamental illusions of the mind . . .
The reality of life is essentially freedom . . ."
The above quotations are taken from a little monograph
on Bergson's Philosophy of Change by Mr. Wildon Carr. a
They help to show how near he has come to many VedSntic
conclusions that a theory of knowledge is but a part
of the theory of Life (which is knowledge plus desire-feeling
1 See p. 120, supra.
3 Jackson's People's Books series. For further scrutiny of Berg-
son's philosophy, and objections to what seen to be his defects, or even
extravagances, see The Science of the Self, Index-references to Bergson.
282 PHILOSOPHIES OF CHANGE [SC. OP
plus action) ; that our knowledge differs with our attitude ;
that sympathy means understanding, and antipathy, misunder-
standing, (the vedanti would add that raga, interestedness,
implies error in understanding, and vai-ragya, disinterestedness,
true understanding) ; that our daily life is based on illusion
(Vedanta would add that the basic illusion is that which takes
finite for Infinite, and vice versa, and all others follow from it) ;
and that freedom is real life (final freedom, moksha, from
that basic illusion). But though Bergson has come so
near, he would probably not yet quite accept the exact
v6dantic conclusions. His own ' attitude ' is one of raga,
of inclination towards change^ and progress always, rather
than of vi-raga and inclination towards changelessness.
Characteristically, Bergson's philosophy is known as ' the
Philosophy of Change '. He is a worshipper of Shakti- Power,
not of Shiva-Peace (see p. 180, f.n., and p. 242, f.n., supra).
At the same time, he has done good service by his work,
and particularly by laying stress on Intuition as contrasted
with, or at least, distinguished from, Intelligence ; stress, which
is likely to make certain aspects of Yoga and Vedanta clearer
to the modern mind. In a certain aspect, his Intuition (in-
cluding Instinct) corresponds with Mahat or Buddhi (identified
with Chitta) ; and his Intelligence with Manas (including
Aham-kara).
The following quotations will help to show.
er
f| 1
I Mbh., Vana, ch. 183.
P., CH. Xl] UNIVERSAL AND INDIVIDUAL MIND 283
tW., Shanti, ch. 254 ; see also ch. 203.
r sf *TRRt OTTO tftpBrcnn ;
g i
3 aurRr, fa^taeg f: i Charaka, i, i.
* Distinguishing of the characteristics of Buddhi and
Manas is one of the final and most important duties of the
psychologist. Buddhi is general awareness, which clings to
the Universal Self, and is always a-search for It, i.e., for the
Unity in all things ; and is wholly dependent upon it ; making
its generalisations only by diligently discerning unity or
similarity in diversity. It becomes manifest in and by ut-
pada, up-rising, (appearing *above the threshold of conscious-
ness), and then takes shape as general concepts or laws and
generalisations, vidhiyate. Manas on the other hand, is ut-
panna, ' uprisen,' active, selective, attentive mind, ' risen
above ' the threshold of consciousness (laya-sthana). Buddhi
specified, particularised, by a vi-kara, a change, a ' formation/
a condensation, by ' wanting something ' definite, by selecting
something out of the whole field (kshetra) and concentrating
on it, becomes Manas ; it takes birth ' and shape in a
* purpose,' a karya, when it wishes to do something ; (other-
wise it remains a sub-consciously or supra-consciously all-
embracing ' great ' memory, ' great self,' Mahan Atma,
Mahat). Because Buddhi, as the first transformation of primal
Prakyti, has the three gu$as, therefore Manas (including
Aham-kara), the second transformation thereof, also manifests
the three in operation.'
According to the Sankhya-scheme, aham-kara, the princi-
ple of egoistic desire, in its three subdivisions, as rajasa-
taijasa, gives birth to manas ; as sattvika-vaikarika, to the
ten sensor and motor organs ; as tamasa-bhutadi, to the five
284 DESIRE-ENERGY THE EGOISM-MAKER [SC. OF
sense-objects, tan-ma$ra-s, anc j t ^ e corresponding bhutas, i.e.,
the sensable-quahties or sensations-as-such, and their sub-
strata. The reason why manas as the chief indriya, organ
or instrument, of the subject-consciousness, on one side ; the
ten outer organs, in between ; and the five great classes of
* objects ', on the other side ; should all be derived from aham-
kara, in the Sankhya scheme, may be explained thus. It is
Desire-Energy which connects Subject and Object, and makes
the subject an organism, investing it with organs made of the
same ' material ' as the * objects ' as will appear more fully in
the later chapters. This Desire-Energy is the very core of
the separate ego, the very principle of egoism, as said above.
It connects an * 1 ' with a ' this,' spiritual jiva with material
atom, or rather, indeed, it marks off and makes the indi-
vidual jiva out of Universal Spirit, and singular atom (or
singular * body ') out of pseudo-universal Matter. Hence, it
may well be said to be the source from which the two sets of
products, subjective and objective, the instruments, karanas,
organs (subdivided into (i) manas, as chief, and (ii) the other
ten, as subordinate), and (in) their objects, are all derived.
'The element or feature of generality, universality, 'com-
monness,' c sameness/ samanya, (which belongs to buddhi),
corresponds to unity, sameness of purpose or intention, and
co-operation ; and it makes for the increase, the expansion, of
every bhava, ' existence, *' concept,' (and sympathy), by in-
clusion of more and more ' propers ' under the ' common '.
The element of vishesha, particularity, speciality (which
belongs to manas), corresponds to 'difference' from each
other, to divergence of purpose and intention, to separateness
and misunderstanding, and makes for decrease and decay,
contraction and enfeebling, of all kinds of ' existence,'
' principles,' ' concepts ', into minute details.' We have seen
above how extremes meet ; and how the perfectly minute, the
infinitesimal, the utterly singular, the true point and moment (or
instant), is the genuine * here and now/ and is indistinguishable
from the perfectly vast, the Infinite, the utterly Universal,
Boundless Circumference, Unlimited and Eternal.
The fundamental ideas are the universality of the Self and
the singularities of the Not-Self. Out of this pair, and always
bound up with each other in inseparable Relation, issue all
P., CH. Xl] CORRESPONDENT PAIRS 285
other corresponding pairs, as said before. Of these pairs, the
following may be mentioned here for our present psychological
purpose.
Amurta and mur^a, formless and formed, abstract and
concrete, ideal and material ; prakrti and vikrti, unmanifest
nature and particular manifestation or transformation ; samanya
and vishesha, general and particular, (the name for the un-
breakable relation between the two being samavaya, in the
technicology of the Vaisheshika system) ; jati and vyakft,
species and individual ; para-samanya and apara- vishesha,
sutnmum gentts and iufima species or rather singnlaris (the
ultimate or highest universal and the final or lowest particular
or singular or individual) : samashti and vyashti, whole and
part ; pra^ka and pratima, nature-force and anthropomorphous
image ' ; pratyaya and nama-rupa, concept and name-form ;
shastra and krtya, science and application ; naya and chara,
theory and practice : siddhanta, raddhanta, mula-sutra, or bija-
man^ra, and prayoga, principles and execution ; Intuition-
instinct and Intelligence, buddhi and manas ; insight of genius
and argument, pratibha and tarka ; yoga-ja jiiana and prakrta-
jfiana, siddha-drshti and laukika-drshti, satya-jn3naand mi^nya
jnana, true and intuitive understanding by love and sympathy
i.e., 'common-feeling/ and false intelligence or misunderstanding
by antipathy or diverse and opposite feeling; vayam and
aham, We and I ; sarva-hi^a and sva-hita, the good of all and
the good of myself ; a-khanda-che^ana and khanda- jnana, con-
tinuum of consciousness and particular partial knowledge;
kshetra and vishesha, vishaya or lakshya, general field of con-
sciousness, and particular objective or focus of attention therein ;
a-vyakta and abhi-vyak^a, latent and patent, un -manifest
and manifest ; an-ud-buddha and ud-buddha, un- or sub- or
supra-conscious and conscious : supta and jdgrat, dormant and
wakeful; nirodha and vyutthana, obliviscence and remi-
niscence, inhibition and exhibition ; jlva and deha, soul and
body, which is *' the soul made visible " ; yuga-paf and
a-yuga-pat, simultaneous knowledge of many or all, and suc-
cessive knowledge of particulars, one by one, which are the
respective characteristics oJ buddhi and manas.
All these pairs are allied, are aspects of each other. And
the process of yoga-development of the soul seems essentially
286 BRAIN AS INHIBITOR-FOCUSSER [SC. OF
to consist in regulating, restraining, controlling, selectively and
attentively turning in one direction (by sam-yama), and inhibit-
ing along all other directions (by nirodha), the activity (vr$0
of chitta-nmnas-arjui, after minimising its egoistic restless-
ness (by vairagya), and making its emotional or ' affective '
tone as placid (full of prasada) as possible, by various
means mentioned in Yoga- works. In this way, individual
mind or ahamkara-rnanas deliberately orients itself towards,
and makes itself the channel, vessel, receiver, missionary,
of Universal Mind, Mahat-Buddhi ; and replaces intel-
ligence by intuition. All the ways of prayer are but ways of
such opening of oneself to the inflow of the larger Self ; and
all ' willing ' is also but a disguised form of ' prayer ;' for every
exercise of individual force and free-will is ultimately and
really but the working of the Universal Force of Universal
Self-Will.
A further quotation from Bergson, (from a report of his
address as President of the Psychical Research Society, in
1913), may help to illustrate the relationship between buddhi
and manas, and also, incidentally, the methods of soul-educa-
tion, mind-development, and psychical extension and expan-
sion of -faculty. " Formerly it was held as a scientific dogma
that the brain was the store-house of memories. . . . (The
truth rather is) that it is the function of the brain to recall
things remembered, an instrument to bring back the remem-
brance of an action, and to prolong the action in movements,
and enable the mind to make adjustment to life. The brain
is not the seat of memory, not an organ of preservation. It is
the organ by which the mind adjusts itself to environment,
prepares the body for the realisation of what the mind has
apprehended. It marks the useless part of the past, and lets
through only those remembrances which are useful to serve
the present. Consciousness transcends the brain, is partially
independent of it, and preserves the whole of the past intact in
every detail. ... In certain cases, as when drowning, or
in battle, the total past of a man is unmasked, and the whole
of it comes rushing in, because the normal necessity of fixing
attention on the present, and still more the future, in order to
live, is relaxed, and all the faculties of attention turn back to
that past which it is the business of the brain normally to
P., CH. Xl] ' PRESENT ' AND ' CONSCIOUS ' 287
hide from him, in order that he may keep his attention con-
centrated on the present and the future. . . . The inference
from the fact that the consciousness is a larger reality than the
brain ... is ... that the separation between individual
consciousness(es) may be much less radical than we suppose.
* . . Consciousness in individuals passes into that of other
individuals, and is not cut up as it seems to be."
All these remarks may not be endorsed, exactly as they
stand, by the Yoga-system of practical or applied psychology ;
but their general trend seems to agree with that of the latter.
Thus, in the full sense, Consciousness, or, if that word be
preferred, (the 'Unconscious, or the Principle of Life and Con-
sciousness), preserves not only the whole of the past intact,,
but also already and always contains the whole of the future
also, according to NyEya and Yoga-Vedanta ; and it is
this fact which makes memory and expectation possible. 1
1 The Unconscious is, after all, nothing so very mysterious ; i.e., it
is not more mysterious then anything else ! You listen to a question of
many words, or a long lecture. All the mass of words goes into your
ears. Each complete word-sound or sentence-sound produces a meaning,
an ap-prehension, a concept, an idea, in your mind, and then disappears.
' Disappears ' means goes into the Un-Conscious or sub-or-supra-Con-
scious. Then, when the question is completed, you make a reply ; when
the lecture is finished, you get up and make a long criticism. The
thoughts, notions, ideas, come welling up in your Mind or ' Conscious-
ness ' from ' nowhere ' , from the Unconscious ; and you go on clothing
them in words, which also come welling up from the same ' nowhere '.
Every sentence, every pageful, you speak or write or read, illustrates the
same process. You have an enormous, indeed an infinite, collection of
'things', of 'books'. You cannot use all of them at once. Strictly,
you can use only one particular thing, at one time, in one place. But this
' one ' is undefinable, is in-de-finite. It is always a more definite (on
rather, less in-de-finite) core, plus a less definite (or rather, more in-
de-fimte fringe. Everything shades and fades away into everything else.
The selection of goods, the almirah of books, that you are more
frequently using, in any given time and place, day, month, year, or life-
time, and roon^, house, town, country that is your ' conscious ', com-
paratively. The rest is your Unconscious, again comparatively. Finite
conscious plus the remainder of the Infinite, is Universal Mind, Total
Unconsciousness or Consciousness just as you please to call it. Each
portion of that Mind is ' conscious ' to or in some one jiva, one in-
dividual, so that the whole of the Unconscious is Conscious, too, in the
Totality of all pseudo-infinite jivas, at every moment of pseudo-eternal
time, in all pseudo-infinite space. As the ' present * is a * slab ' or
' chunk ' of time, cut out of the Time-Continuum, over which individual
288 PSYCHO-ANALYSTS' EXTREMISM [SC. OF
Nyaya-sutra, III, ii, 42, expressly says,
' Memory (of the past, and also of the future, which is
called expectation) is possible only because the very nature of
Self is that of Eternal All-knower.' The Bhashya on this
explains that Self is in constant contact with all knowledge*
of past, present, and future.
The system of yoga of Yoga-sutra, seems to be a
system of profound education, of training of the mind and
brain for more and more effective use ; like the training of
the eye or the ear or the hands. It may, indeed, be called,
not inappropriately, ' the Science and Art of Attention '.
All possible sounds, all possible colours and forms, are there,
in space ever existent in the universe ; but human eye, human
memory-expectation can range, so the ' conscious ' is a ' slab ' or ' block '
or 'piece', cut out of the Consciousness- (or Un-consciousness)-
continuum, over which mdividnal memory-expectation can range.
This Universal Mind, Brahma, the flrst manifestation of Brahma, is
called Umm-ul-Kitab, ' Mother of Scriptures, Revelations ', in Sufism.
What about the claims of psycho-analysts, if what is said above
is correct ? The substance of them stands and remains valuable, after
pruning of all exaggerations. They draw the lives too hard and fast between
" suppression ' and ' re-pression ', ' unconscious ' and ' pre-conscious ' and
'fore-conscious', normal forgetting and abnormal forgetting, etc.:
and, for many mental phenomena, they have quite unnecessarily coined
new and imposing-looking words, difficult to remember, and themselves
very liable to be ' suppressed ' and ' repressed ' into the ' unconscious ' '
If we only bear in mind the facts (1) that all the ' abnormal ' phenomena,
which psycho-analysts have noted, studied, and expounded, are only
' excesses ' of those emotional experiences which all ' normal ' persons
undergo, now and then, more or less ; (2) that three fourths of the cure of
psycho-neurotic trouble consists in persuading the patient gradually to
introspect and understand the true nature of his malady, and (3) that the
remaining fourth of the cure is achieved by so strengthening the
patient's will, that he becomes able to control his excess of emotionif
these facts are borne in mind, psycho-analytic literature becomes very
helpful in understanding Yoga-literature ; and Yoga-literature becomes
suggestive of ways to persuade the patient and strengthen his will.
Pratyak-chetana, * turning the mind's eye inwards
from outwards/ is the great feat, the miracle, which ' makes
the whole world new ' ; it is the one sole secret of real
conversion, real re-education, ' second birth ', re-generation.
P., CH. Xl] RE-EDUCATION BY INTROSPECTION 289
ear, is riot, in the first place, so constructed as to be able
to catch all kinds of them ; and, in the second place, of
those that it can perceive, it actually perceives only those
towards which it is diligently and attentively turned.
It is much the same as with telescopes and microscopes;
their powers are limited, and they must be very carefully
adjusted, if they are to show with the greatest possible effect-
iveness, what is wanted to be seen. The brain seems to
be an * organ/ the physical coefficient of the psychical ' inner
organ/ as the eye-ball or the ear-mechanism is that of the
* faculty ' of vision or audition ; and its realm and domain is
the ' field of consciousness ' generally. All possible psychical
(or psycho-physical, or spirituo-material, for the two are
utterly interdependent and inseparable) experiences, thoughts,
emotions, plans, are always existent in the total whole. The
individual mind, manas-brain, catches and manifests such of
them as it turns, or is turned, towards. To turn, deliberately,
and not be turned, helplessly ; and not only turn one's face,
intellectually, towards the face of the object sought to be
'understood/' but to enter with one's heart, vitally, into the
heart of it : to identify one's own life and being with that
other's life and being, by sympathy, by love this is, it would
seem, to replace intellect, which works from ' outside/ by
intuition which works from ' inside '. Generally speaking, we
' understand ' what we love, intuitively ; the mother intuitively
perceives the requirements of the child ; she fails, very often,
because undeveloped or ill -cultured but insistent intellect
interferes ; in order to ' understand ' another properly, we must
' get into his skin/ ' see with his eyes ' ; the meaning and
definition of samadhi, in yoga- works, seems to be just this.
Yet intellect and intuition have to check and correct each
other too.
After the needed understanding has been gained through
intuition, it may be utilised in various ways by intelligence*
To apply to requirements, to. carry out into ' action/ is pre-
eminently the work of manas ; as to ' ascertain ' what the facts
and laws and great general principles are, is that of buddhi.
AH great discoveries, in their first form of luminous hypothesis,
may be said to be the work of such intuition ; subsequent con*
crete details and utilisations, and devising of means to ends,
19
290 GREAT DISCOVERIES, INTUITIONAL [SC. OF
on the basis of that hypothesis, are the work of intelligence.
If these views are correct, it is obvious that there is no
opposition or radical difference of any kind between intuition
and intellect ; they may even be said to be degrees or aspects
or counter-parts of each other, and to pass into each other, at
times insensibly. Every act of * attention ' is, strictly, a
focusing of the mind for the inflow of * intuitional ' knowledge.
Yoga, (in the sense of ' inhibition of other mentations ', so as
to make possible the * exhibition ' of some one other, or a few
others), so regarded, is, as said in Yoga-bhashya itself, a con-
stant feature of the mind, and belongs to it in all its moods and
at all its stages of development. But it is only when dharaya,
selection or concentration, dhyana, attention or contemplation,
samadhi, meditation, raptness, rapport it is only when these
attain a certain degree of efficiency and success, and, yet more
so, when the intuitional knowledge or experience, and the
extension of faculty aimed at, refer to things outside of the
daily routine of life, to matters superphysical and metaphy-
sical, that the word yoga is used of them conventionally and
technically.
It will have been observed that the Buddhi and Manas
(corresponding generally to Intuition and Intellect), dealt with
in the present section, xi, of this note, are not quite the same
as the buddhi and manas which, with aham-kara, constitute
the three faculties of the chitta-mind. Yet they are not
altogether different either. In a sense, Buddhi- Intuition may
be said to be the same as Mahat or Mahan-Atma, the Great
Soul, the Universal Mind, of which the individual chitta is a
reflection ; while Manas- Intellect would include the triad of
buddhi-ahankara-manas.
In psycho -physical Puranic mythology (mithya-jnana,
primal error, which invests with murti or form that which is
a-murta, formless, whence it follows that the whole of this
World- Process is one vast Mythos), the Buddhi and Manas
that are now being dealt with are symbolised as Vishrjiu and
Brahma respectively, (Shiva then standing for Atma), on
the scale of brabm-dndas, ' eggs of the Infinite,' ' orbs ' of
Heaven. Thus
P., CH. Xl] PURANJC METAPHORS 291
. Shanti, ch. 180.
' Vishnu, Jishnu, Shambhu, mati, buddhi, prajnS, upa-
labdhi, khy^ti, dhrti, smrti, (names of various aspects of
intelligence and memory), are all synonyms for Mahat or
Mahdn AtmL From the ' navel '-lotus, the central being,
the ' womb ', of Vishnu or Narayana, ' sleeping J in the
waters of space, as sub- or supra-consciousness or Dormant
Memory or Universal Mind, there arises Brahma or Aham-
kara, who is the soul of all beings ; whence arise all the
five root-kinds of sens-able matter, etc. ; and the scene of
whose activities and manifestations is the Earth, described as
a lotus. This lotus, with irregular petals, some large, some
small, is spread out on the surface of the ocean, upside down ;
the centre of the lotus is the North Pole, and the great Capes
are the apices of the irregular petals ; the whole of the
earth-globe, in turn, is an off -shoot as it were, from
the * solar ' plexus or sun-heart of the larger Vishnu of the
solar system.' Unfortunately, the metaphor of the PuraQas
has ceased to be metaphor, and is being taken literally, with
endless mischief as consequence. Artha-vada, rupaka, allegory,
symbolism, has indeed become an-artha-vada, baneful misin-
terpretation in unhappy India for many centuries now.
The names of Universal Mind-Soul-Body, Intellectus-
Animus-Corpus-Mundi, (which constitutes the 'contents 'of
the Logion I-This-Not), each signifying an important aspect
or characteristic, are etymologically explained in the following
verses of Vayu Parana.
292 MANY NAMES OF THE SAME ONE [SC.
IR,
I
HR, frgcl,
^r^:, ct^r ^r^ ' *fRr:
' 9 ri '
P., CH. Xl] SYNONYMS OF ATMA-BRAHMA-MANAS 293
g,
r
' '
g
: > (oAi) w **$: ^: \
: '
's i
294 EXPLANATIONS [SC. OF
; %<wr*w?: H:
Purana, Purva-ardha. chs , iv, v.
', ' flniicm', ' i&w. ' s
M6^.. Shan^i. chs. 180, 308, 316, 317, etc r
* Because this World-Mind manifests first of all ; is greater
than all the guna-s and tattva-s, attributes and elements, that
spring from it ; and, in measure, is immeasurably Immense,
therefore is it named Mahan, the Great. Because it mentates
the effortful evolution of all things and beings from smaller
and subtler states to larger and denser, therefore is it Manas,
Mind. It understands, knows, budhya^e, all things, and
distinguishes useful from harmful, therefore it is Buddhi. It
knows, vindate, all, and its excellence is such that it also
knows that it knows ; also it abides, vidyate, in everything,
and everything abides it ; therefore it is Sam-vit- It weighs
(by arguments) ; analyses (facts and views) ; forms opinions
with reference to the requirements of the individual ; therefore
is it Mati. It shapes a body, puh, of and for the tattvas,
elements, and fills it, purayate", with kind gifts (experiences),
and then dwells, shete, in that body as in a house or town,
purl ; therefore is it known as Puh and Puru-sha. All aware-
ness, khya^i, all experience of joy and sorrow, depends upon
it, and because it is famously* known and declared, khyayatfl,
by many attributes and many names, therefore is it called
Khyflti. It knows all ; has power and is sovereign
over all, ishate, ishte ; commands and controls all things
and beings and worlds ; and is not ruled by any other ;
therefore is it Ishvara. It 'knows supremely ', pra-jfia, the
P., CH. Xl] OF THE DIFFERENT NAMES 295
subtlest mysteries, and the planets (which are to the Sun as
sensor-and-motor-organs are to a living organism) are Its pro-
geny, pra-ja, therefore is it Pra-jna. All forms, all cogni-
tions, all volitions, all actions, and all fruits of all actions, are
stored up, chinoti, in it, for ever ; therefore is it Chiti. All
work, past, present, and future, it remembers ever, smarate ;
therefore is it Smara, Memory. Because it is vast, brhat,
because it expands itseif, and expands, spreads out, brmharjia,
all worlds, all things and beings, all feelings and emotions, in
infinite space, salila-akasha, therefore is named Brahma.
Because it is all knowledge, jna, therefore is it Jnana.
Because it enhances, gives intensity and extensity, vipula-
ta, ample scope, to the pairs of opposities, two-s, dvam-dvam-s,
therefore is it known as Vipura. It is known as JShava be-
cause it is the source and fount of all becomings, bhu. Because
it knows the ' field ', the object, of consciousness, and also
the knower of it, i.e., it-Self, it is known as Kah (also,
Yah, Sah ; He, Who, What ; all pronouns which cover
all objects, as well as the subject, of consciousness). It
attains all objects, apnoft : it takes all, a-datte ; it eats,
tastes, all things, atti ; it extends continuously over all,
a-tata, san-tata, sata^am, ever ; because it negates, mfl, and
transcends, ati-efti all This, Etat ; and, while thus negating
all Else, It-Self-remains Self-established, moveless, eternal ;
therefore is it named Atma, pre-eminently. It reaches all,
rchchhati ; therefore is Rshi. It enters into all, vishafci ; there-
fore is Vishnu. It possesses all the lordlinesses, marks of
sovereignty, bhaga ; therefore is Ehaga-vSn. It is Raga,
because desire stirs in it and is controlled by it. Because
it protects, avati, all who meditate on it, therefore is
it AUM (OM). It knows all, therefore is Sarva-jna, omni-
scient. It is the home, refuge, ayana, of all souls, nara-s ;
therefore is it Nar-ayarjia. Because the first, adi, of all gods,
therefore is it Aditya. If produces and protects, pati, ail
progeny, prajS ; therefore is it Praja-pati. Because it is the
greatest of all gods, therefore is it Maha-deva. Because it
pervades all, *s, bhu, in all, peculiarly, vi-shesh6na, there-
fore is it Vi-bhu. Because all ' sacrifices ' are offered to it,
are for it, therefore it is YajSa personified. Because it surveys,
darshana, the whole World- Process and ranges over it all
296 THEOSOPHICAL TECHNICAL TERMS [SC. OF
in mighty flights (of imagination), therefore is it Kavi (ka,
world, vi, bird, world-bird). Because it is the Womb of Gold,
garbha of hiraflya, Source of Golden Light, enveloped in
Golden Light, (physical as well as mental), therefore is it
Hiranya-garbha (the Sun). Because it makes all things,
vi-shoshena r a chay at i, therefore is it Vi-rinchi. It is
Vishva-rupa, because all worlds, vishva, all forms, rupa, are
its forms. Because it is not born from any thing else, but
only from It-Self, therefore is it Svayam-bhu. Because it is
the One and only Immortal, eka a-kshara, and also because
it is ultimately named by eka a-kshara, the One-lettered
(tri-une) Word-Sound (AUM) Om, therefore is it Ekakshara '.
By such synonyms, paryaya-s, which are used for It
by turns, * coming one after another ', paryayaija, is the
Universal Mind known.
In the language of earlier theosophical literature, Atmd,
the first principle, would correspond (on the cosmic scale) with
Pratyag-atma or the Abstract and Universal I ; Buddhi, the
second principle, with Universal Mind, all-inclusive Intuition
or infinite sub-and-supra-consciousness, or the collective
I, the We, the ' I am and am-not all this-s' ; Manas, the third
principle, with the singular or individual 1, ' I am and,
again, later on I am not this particular this/ the particular
mind with its successive experiences of the nature of know-
ledge, feeling, and activity, and its particular recollections.
These remarks have to be understood as subject to the
explanation that, for practical purposes, every sutr-atma
* thread-soul ', ' group-soul ', or larger individuality, serves as
' genus ' or ' universal ' to the jiv-8tma-s or smaller individual-
ities which are included within it, which live and move and
have their being in it (see ch. xiii, infra).
In the same theosophical language, we may say that
instinct is the 'mystic* participation of the individual soul in the
life of the astral group-soul or sutr-atma ; and intuition, in the
life of the buddhic group-soul. Every individual understands,
knows t.e., feels, the sensations of any part of his body, because
he is identified with that part, vitally ; so we understand
instinctively and intuitionally i.e., we feel, the experiences of
those ' other * jivas whom we love and who are therefore no
P., CH. XIl] RATIOCINATION 297
longer ' other ' to us but indeed parts of ourselves. If we can
identify ourselves with all, if we can realise our oneness with
all, we will understand or feel all. " To know all is to excuse
all," as the proverb says, because to know all is not possible
without loving all, and to love all is not only to excuse all as
one excuses oneself, but to help all as one helps oneself.
CHAPTER XII
PVAM-DVAM THE RELATIVE (CONTINUED)
(C. n.) NEGATION AS CONDITION OF
INTERPLAY BETWEEN SELF AND NOT-SELF
JN the last chapter we dealt with 'the affirmative aspect
of Negation ; as the Energy which links together, in an
endless chain of Causality, the factors of the succession
of the World-Process ; as the necessity of the Whole
which appears as the Cause of each part ; as the Relation }
of cause-and-effect between all the parts. We turn now
to the negative aspect, of Negation, wherein it appears
as the Condition or conditions, of the Interplay between
Self and Not-Self; the conditions in which the succession
1 Seeing such relation (L. ratio, ratus, to think, to reason) is rea-
soning, ratio-cmation , re-lat-ion-mg (L. re, back, latus, to carry, to
bear, to bear or carry one to another, and back, to and fro. in mind).
There is a deep reason why the words ' cause ' and ' reason ' should be
equivalent and often synonymous and interchangeable ; it is the
fact, already mentioned, that the Universal Mind or ' Pure ' Reason,
Cosmic Ideation of the Whole, (bearing or carrying all parts, at once,
within itself, in re-lation or ratio to each other), is the cause of the
appearance of each portion, in succession, i.e., is the cause of
each event. The Samskrt words karana and hetu are similarly allied ;
karana is active cause , hetu is passive condition, reason, motivating
end or propose.
298 CAUSE AND CONDITION [SC. OF
of the factors of the World-Process appears and takes
place. 1
A little reflection will show that cause and condition
are only the positive and negative aspects of the same
thing. A cause may be -said to be a positive condition,
and a condition a negative cause.
Let not the objection be taken here that we are
transporting, by an anachronism, the notions of our life
at the present day, to a primal stage wherein pure ulti-
mates or penultimates and subtle undeveloped essentials
only, of the universe, should be discussed. It has been
pointed out, over and over again, that there is no grada-
tion, no development in time, from the abstract to the
concrete. The two underlie and overlie and inextricably
interpenetrate one another and are coexistent. 2 And,
even were it otherwise, that which appears in develop-
ment must have been in the seed all along. The World-
Process is in and is the Absolute. Metaphysic only
endeavours to trace each abstract and concrete fact of
our life, taking it, as it stands before us, back into its
proper place in the Absolute, in the Changeless Whole,
1 In the technical phraseology of the Nyaya, that which is called
cause here would be, generally, karana ; while condition would be
sadharana-nimiffa, or hetu.
- To philosophy, the whole of all history is, as it were, ever pre-
sent ; all change is always within the Changeless. All the states that
appear as successive stages in the life, or history, of any ' individual '
organism, species, genus, kingdom, planet, solar system, in any given
place, are to be found existing simultaneously in different individuals
in different places. God has not disappeared and become absent after
a single act of creation, The forces and factors of the World-Process ,
working at any past or future time, and near or distant place, are all
working now and here, overtly or covertly, whenever and wherever we
may think of them .
P., CH. XIl] MANY KINDS AND NAMES 299
and so to free us from the nightmare of overpowering,
irresistible, uncontrolable Change. Therefore, taking
the words * cause ' and ' condition ' in the sense in
which we find them used to-day, we may legitimately
try to show that these senses correspond to aspects of
the ultimates.
Other ways of looking at them are to regard causes as
successive and passing conditions, and conditions as per-
sisting and coexisting causes ; that is, that causes are
conditions which cease to ' exist ' when the effect begins
to * exist,' and that conditions are causes which persist
throughout the existence of the effect as well as before
and after ; and so on. Looked at from the standpoint of
the Absolute, inasmuch as everything is necessarily con-
nected with everything else, and the Whole only is the
source of each part, all these various ways of describing
cause and condition resolve themselves into merely various
ways of describing the different relations, all equally
necessary, of facts, or parts, to each other. Out of these
various ways we have the many distinctions between final
cause, efficient cause, material cause, formal cause, instru-
mental cause, movement or action, motive, etc., in
western philosophy : and between nimitta, samavayi or
upadana, a-samavayi, saha-kari, sadharana-nimitta or
mukhya, a-sadharana-nimitta or a-mukhya, udd6shya,
karta, kriya, karya, prayojana, h6tu, karaka, 1 etc., all
or
or a?g^, g^r, ^T^ fferr, 3>
, etc. Gfta, xviii. 13-15, speaks of five kinds of
300 POSITIVE & NEGATIVE ASPECTS [SC. OF
different kinds of karana, * causes/ with their divisions
and sub-divisions, in the eastern systems.
The one common characteristic of cause, running
throughout all these, is that which is given by the old
Nayyayikas : viz., " which being, the effect becomes, and,
which not being, the effect does not become," ] the princi-
ple of concomitant variations, in short, as it is called in
western logic. The first half represents the positive
aspect, the one true universal * cause ', corresponding to
the Self, the affirmation, the Shakti element of the Nega-
tion ; and the second half, the negative aspect, the one
true universal * condition,' corresponding to the Not -Self,
the denial, the negative element of the Negation ; where-
as all other so-called particular causes or conditions are
in reality only so many effects, which have taken on a
false appearance of cause or condition by reflection in
the succession of the World- Process of the true universal
Necessity which makes each particular a necessary fact,
and so a cause and a condition, with reference to all
other particulars ; that is to say, makes each particular
appear as the necessary effect of preceding, and the
%fi^:. All such are classifiable under our 'Cause' and ' Condition '.
Each system of philosophy has its own classifications and technical
names. Buddhist systems have yet others; thus: " six kinds of causes
and five of effects are karana-hetu and adhipati-phalam ; saha-bhu-hetu
and purusha-kara-phalam ; sampr&yukta-hctu and vipaka-phalam ;
vipaka-hgtu and vi-sam-yoga-phalam ; and sarvatra-ga-h6tu. Or, (accord-
ing to another system), four pratyayas (causes or conditions), viz., adhi-
pati, alambana, sam-an-antara, andheiu, (i.e., additional cause, objective
canse of mental process, immediate cause, and direct cause) " ; Systems
of Buddhistic Thought, by Yamakami Sogen, pp. 309-315 (pub. 1912,
University of Calcutta).
1 Bhimacharya, Nyttya-kosha, p. 197, article 35R<T^, karanam,
cause.
P., CH. XIl] ONE CAUSE, ONE EFFECT 301
necessary cause of succeeding, particulars, in an endless
and unbreakable chain, the whole of which chain, how-
ever, is only One Effect which is identical with its One
Cause, the necessity of the Absolute.
We thus see that, in empirical detail, Self or Spirit
and Not-Self or Matter are, neither of them, either cause
or effect ; but that the changes of cognition, desire, and
action, and of qualities, substance, and movement, of
which they are the form or substratum, are causes or
conditions, and effects or results, of one another in turn ;
and that the transcendental totality of these changes,
being regarded as one effect and result, has for one cause,
the Shakti-Energy, and for one condition the Negation,
embodied in the third factor of the Absolute.
This Shakti-Energy, we have seen, has three aspects :
attraction, repulsion, and rhythmic alternation or revolu-
tion ; or creation, destruction, and preservation. 1 Negation
proper has also three aspects : <j6sha, space, kala, time,
and kriya or ayana, motion.* These are the triple
occurs in Bhagavata. IV, xxix, 67;
in the Yoa-bhashya by Vyasa ; ^-^-ST^S?^^ ' by
difference of time, place, and circumstance/ is an expression of frequent
occurrence in Samskrt literature.
2 The Biography of Man, the whole History of all things, individuals,
groups, institutions, nations, races, kingdoms (of Nature, mineral,
vegetable, etc.), orbs, worlds, 'systems, is all comprised in the ' six forms
or ways of existence, bhava-vikarah, viz., is born i.e., appears or comes
into manifest existence, grows, stays, changes, decays, and dies or dis-
appears ; jayatS, varcjha|e, tishthatd, vipari-namaiS, biyate, mriyate;
The yet higher categories under which these six are comprised, are,
and if-Sffecr, ' is ' and ' is not '.
302 TRIAD OF CONDITIONS [SC. OF
g u n a s, or aspects, of Negation, in the same way as
S a t-C h i d- A n a n d a and S a 1 1 v a-R a j a s-T a m a s are
the gun as of Pratyag-atm5 and Mula-prakrti respect-
ively. Negation, with respect to the One limitless Self, in
whose consciousness the negated Not-Self, the countless
Many, are co-existent, is negation Everywhere, in Simulta-
neity, is the utter blankness of pesudo-infinite and k ii t a s-
t h a-seeming Space. Negation, with respect to Not-Self,
the pseudo-infinite Many, which find themselves posited
and denied in that consciousness turn by turn, is negation
Everywhen, in Succession, is pseudo-infinite and ever-
flowing Time. Negation with respect to Negation, is the
endeavour to affirm, to justify, the consciousness of the
inseparable connection between Self and the repudiated
Not-Self everywhere, everywhen, everyway ; this can be
done onjy in and by means of un-end-ing Motion, which
is the one way to encompass all space and time ; Motion,
in and by which only, Space and Time are joined together
and realised, even as Self and Not-Self are realised in and
by the Negation.
Let us dwell for a moment on the fact that Space,
Time, and Motion are the gun as, qualities, of Negation.
We see readily, on even slight reflection, that Space and
Time are mere emptinesses, vacua, which may appropri-
ately be regarded as phases of Na, Not, the Naught.
Motion presents a little more difficulty. We seem to feel
that it is something positive. Yet this is due only to the
fact that we are thinking more of the moving thing than
of its motiop. Let us try to (seem to) think of motion as
P., CH. XIl] SPACE-TIME-MOTION 303
separate from the moving thing, even as we (seem to, but
cannot really) think of space and time as (quite) separate
from extended or enduring things ; and we shall see at
once that it is as much an emptiness as the latter ; indeed
is nothing else than an emptiness which combines in itselt
the emptinesses of the other two, since we know Space
and Time only by Motion ; in slumber, all three dis-
appear together. It is thus doubly empty. Space seems,
Time seems, to leave a trace behind. More, we feel as
if Space is, there, always, before us ; we feel that even
Time is, there, always. We speak of even the past and
the future as if they were something positive, something
recoverable, something contained, locked away, in the
present which we hold in our hands. But Motion ? it
is gone and has left no trace ; lines traced on running
water, birds' flights in the air. 1 Of course the moving
or the moved thing may remain, but that is not motion,
any more than it is space or time. Motion, then, is
verily the most negative of negations.
Another point. Space, Time, and Motion have been
shown here as broadly corresponding to Self, Not-Self,
and Negation respectively. But too much stress should
not be laid on, nor too much precision expected in, these
correspondences. Where everything is connected with
' As the path cannot be traced, of fish in water, or bird in air ; so
cannot be traced the passage of the knowers, in the ocean of Omni-
science, from the Limited to the Limitless '.
304 EROS AS MEMORY [SC. OF
everything, the distinguishing of such correspondences
can only mean that certain facts, as viewed from a certain
standpoint, are seen to be more specially connected
with each other than with others. Change the stand-
point slightly, and new connections are thrown Into
relief and old ones retire into the shade. This is seen
to be the case, more and more, as we proceed from the
simple to the complex. In the very instance now before
us, for example, with reference to the fact that Negation
is the nexus between Self and Not-Self, Motion may be
said to correspond to Negation, as also being a nexus
between Space and Time. But take another triplet into
consideration : jnana-ichchha-kriya. Here, while
it may be said that the condition of C h i t or j n a n a is
Space, implied in the ' co-existence ' of subject and object,
knower and known, it does not seem quite fitting to say
that the condition corresponding to Sat or k r i y a is
time, and to Ananda orichchhais motion. Of
course it would not be altogether incorrect to say even
this; yet it seems more obvious to say that, kriya
corresponds to motion, and ichchha to time, which,
in: terms of consciousness, is memory of past pleasure
and pain, and present wish, and expectation in the future,
to secure the one and avoid the other again. 1 On the
1 One name for Kama-Eros, a form of desire, is Sraara, -which means
memory. Incidentally, it may be noted that Space-Time-Motion are the
4 empty ' essentials of the Great Illusion, Life, in everyway. Life is
pleasurable and healthy, when it is ' spacio as-leisurely-easy going ' ; it
is unpleasant and unhealthy, when 'cramped-hurried-driven'. To do
fixed work, in fixed place, at fixed time, is to be ' orderly ' ; to do other-
wise, is to be 'disorderly', unorganised, inefficient and ineffectual
and unhealthy.
P., CH. XII] VIEWS CHANGE WITH STANDPOINTS 305
other hand, we may not unjustifiably say that Motion
corresponds to i c h c h h a, because i c h c h h a implies a
movement from the past through the present towards
the future ; and that the succession involved in k r i y a is
Time. Or, again, we may consider the matter without
inaccuracy in this manner : Space seems something
overt, almost visible, one may say ; Motion also seems
overt, something visible ; but Time is hidden, it is a
matter for the inner consciousness only, (except on the
face of the clock, where k r i y a, active movement, is
patent), as ichchha is the hidden desire between
an overt cognition and an overt action ; therefore,
while Space and Motion may correspond with overt
Self and Not-Self, Time should correspond with
covert Negation. Arguing from the mere words also,
one may say that Self and Not meet in Not-Self;
therefore Space and Time, meeting in Motion, should
be assigned to Self and Negation, respectively ; while
Motion should be assigned to Not-Self. Yet again, we
may correctly say that Time is realised only by change,
i.e., Motion, and Motion is possible only in Space, there-
fore Space is the meeting-point of the two, and so should
correspond to the nexus, i.e., Negation. And so on. We
see thus that, from different points of view, one and the
same thing appears in different aspects. For the present,
seeing that Motion has almost unanimously been re-
garded, in East and West, as incorporating both Space
and Time, we may accept the correspondence noted
first, viz., that of Space, Time, and Motion, to Self,
20
306 SPACE IS CO-EXISTENCE [SC. OF
Not-Self, and Negation, respectively, as the most
prominent.
Let us now take up each of these three separately.
(A) SPACE
Space is the Co-existence, saha-astita, together-being,
saha-bhava, together-moving, saha-chara, paired-ness or
simultaniety, yanga-pa<Jya, of the Many.' It is the
possibility of the coexistence of the many, and the
actuality of their non-existence/ The Self is one and
opposed to the many at once and eternally ; hence the
coexistence of the countless not-selves as well as their
endless succession. The form and result of their co-
existence is mutual exclusion, which produces the
duality of ' side by side,' ' one beside another, 1 with the
intervening space ' between,' as the completing third
which connects the two, one on each side. This triplicity
of * side, beside, and between/ parshva or paksha, a para -
parshva or apara-paksha, and antara, appears in Space
as viewed from the standpoint of Not-Self. This triad
may also be expressed as attra, here, tattra, there, and
madhya, the middle space, the * in between '/
* In actuality, space is limited, and so come to be the possibility
of the co-existence of a few, and impossibility of more ; thus, when fresh
passengers try to enter a crowded railway carriage, the occupants cry out.
" There is no space here: please go to another carriage where there
is, i.e. where there are no occupants ".
P., CH. XIlJ TRIADS OF SPACE 307
Viewed from the standpoint of Self, Space may also
be said to be the coexistence of Self and Not-Self. But
the coexistenee of these two is scarcely a co-existence.
Such co-existence can properly be ascribed only to things
of the same kind and nature, on the same level, and side
by side with each other ; while Self and Not-Self are
opposed in nature ; the one is Being, the other is Non-
Being. Their coexistence is only through and in the way
of the third factor, Negation ; i.e., Not-Self does not exactly
co-exist with Self ; it rather exists in it, in its conscious-
ness, and exists only to be denied. Hence we have another
form, though not essentially different in nature, of spatial
relations, than that described above as ' side, beside, and
between '. This other form is that of ' in and out,' ant ah,
and bahih, ' internal and external/ ' core and sheath,'
both held together in the * through and through,' sarvatah,
the ' whole,' the ' pervading,' vyapta.i Thus we have
another triplicity in Space with special reference to Self.
In this, again, from the standpoint of the universal Self,
that Self is the enveloping Space, pure, colourless, ab-
stract, in which the 6tats, the this's. live and move ; and
so It may be said to be the outer, and Not-Self the inner.
It is this aspect of Self, Pratyag-atma, which has pro-
bably given to Param-atma its best-known name, Brahma,
Boundless Immensity, from the root brh, to grow, to
expand, to be vast.* But from the standpoint of the
1 a???!:, 3fg:, wfes, 52 JTH I
" ^ *W, Chh&ndogya and Brfya<}-&ranyaka ; f^, ^
increases, expands ; also flfcf, works, labours, incessantly.
308 POINT, LINE, SPACE [SC. OF
individual, an * aham ' limited by an ' 6tat,' Self is the
inner core and Not-Self the outer sheath.
We may distinguish another form of the triplicity of
Space, with reference to Negation, viz., ' point, radii,
sphere,' bindu, jlva or trijya or vyas-ardha and gola. 1 The
other triplets of words, too, express nothing else than
emptiness and negation, but this mathematical triplet
seems to be even more abstract, more empty of content,
if possible ; hence the propriety of regarding it as
arising from a view of Space with special reference to
Negation.
Other ways of expressing the triplicity involved in-
Space may be said to be ' behind, here, before,' and
' length, breadth, and depth, 1 which last is the best known
and most commonly mentioned form of the dimensions
of space.
As the mathematical kinds of Motion are pseudo-
infinite, as the standards and measures of Time are
pseudo-infinite, so the degrees and measures of Space or
-extension are also pseudo-infinite. There are always, and
ad iiifinitum, * etats ' ' this-es, ' objects, minutes than the
minutest and vaster than the vastest. As minute vibrations
of motion permeate grosser sweeps, as subtler standars of
time permeate larger measures, so smaller sizes and dimen-
sions permeate and pervade larger sizes and dimensions. In
this sense, as with motion and time so with space, there
or f5|33n or 53fTOTO, *s5 ; another triad, included
In this^would be ^centre-diameter. (or line)-circumference,
- XI)-
P., CH. XIl] ONLY THREE DIMENSIONS POSSIBLE 309
are not only a certain number, but necessarily a pseudo-
infinite number, of dimensions. Otherwise, the triplicity
described above, in various triplets of words, represents
the three dimensions proper of space, (time and motion
also having their three dimensions proper, each, to be
mentioned presently) ; all other dimensions, subtler or
grosser, being but permutations and combinations of these
three ; and the three themselves being essentially ways
of looking at the one fact of co-existence. 1
The meaning of this will appear further in connec-
tion with the pseudo-infinite lokah, i.e., planes, grades,
kinds or regions of matter, each made and marked by a
1 The fourth and higher and even infinite dimensions of space form
the subject of mathematical speculations now, frequently ; but it is difficult
to understand them in any other sense than as above. It is said that the
point ' produced ' gives the line, making the first dimension ; the line
' produced ' sidewise, the surface, the second ; the surface similarly, the
solid, the third ; so the solid ' produced ' will give the fourth, and so on.
But let us trace the process backwards ; what will the point , re-duced '
yield ? And could that again be * re-duced ' further ad infinitum ?
H. P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine, (I, 295, 296) expressly
repudiates, the notion of fourth, etc., dimensions in any other sense
than that of " permeability," substances being able to penetrate grosser
ones. As a fact, a cube ' produced ' yields an ordinary three-dimen-
sioned but elongated solid. Also, as a fact, the point, the line, the
surface, are mere abstractions, as of back and front, which are distin-
guishable, but never separable from the solid, in nature. The Mahatma
Letters, p. 404, also say that 4 ' Humanity belongs to the three-dimen-
sional condition of matter ; and there is no reason why in (Deva-
S t h a n a, abode of gods, heaven, svarga), the ego should be varying
its dimensions ' ' . The purport of the whole context seems to be that
"Space is infinity itself" and as such, has no dimensions, but only
finite matter has dimensions, and these are only three, and always
must be only three and no more. The notion, that, with the eye, we
see only two dimensions, length and breadth is fallacious. In every
exercise of every sense, we sense, co-existence, the presence of subject
and object, in the first place, and of many objects in the second. And
this co-existence is always l/tree-dimensional. Careful consideration of
the ways and movements of even the eyeless animals or animal-cubs
even, of the ocean-depths, seems to show their sensing of three dimen-
sions, before, behind, and round and round.
310 SYMBOLOGY [SC. OF
differently vibrating and differently sized atom. Each
supports, serves as adhara, substratum, of the next so-
called lower and grosser ; .and each is supported in turn*
by the preceding so-called subtler and finer. Each be-
haves in an apparently mysterious, superphysical, and
space-transcending way, because of the subtler and
penetrative, permeative, pervasive, nature of its vibra-
tions, from the standpoint of the lower ; but becomes a
part of, one step of, the ordinary, familiar and * well-
understood ' scale of matter, including the lower planes
from the standpoint of the higher. 1
In the language of symbology, which yet seems
intended to describe literal facts of subtler planes of
matter also, this Space may be regarded as meant by
the garland of human heads, individual-points of con-
sciousness and atom-points of matter, that Shiva,
embodiment of ' negative ' i c h c h h a, ever bears upon
his breast ; each head separate from the other, each side
by side with another, yet all united together by the
strong single thread of the desire-consciousness of mutual
interlinking and inseparability. It may also be sym-
bolised by the dark and giant mammoth-skin that is the
outer envelope of that inner God, for i c h c h h a cannot
manifest except in Space.
V&yu Pur ana, Purvfcrflha, ch. 49. D&vi BhctgOvata also has a
verse to the same effect.
P., CH. XIl] TIME 311
(B) TlMK
As movement between Self and Not-Self is the
basic principle of all motion, so succession, krama, 1
of this movement, of affirmation and then negation, is
the basic principle of, indeed is, Time. Time is nothing
else than succession of events. It may also be described
as the possibility of the succession of events, i.e., changes
in the conditions of objects, and the actuality of their
non-cession, non-procession, non-duration, the ever-
standing witness of their non-permanence, their non-
existence. That is to say, as Space is emptiness which
is the possibility of the co-existence of objects ; which,
regarded in itself, and as differing from these objects, is
only defined and thrown into relief by them, and is not
them ; which, indeed, looked at thus, is their absence
and their opposite ; so Time is an emptiness, which is
the possibility of the succession of events : is only defined
and thrown into relief by those events ; and is not them,
but their absence and their opposite. As this succession
of events, i.e., experiences, identifications and separations,
slackens or quickens or ceases (comparatively and appa-
rently), so the standard of Time changes ; it appears to be
long or short, or even disappears altogether as in the case
of sound slumber, before mentioned, to the individual and
limited consciousness. 2 This is verifiable by anyone in
'W.
3 A person falling sound asleep on a train while it is standing at a
station, and waking up again hours later at another station some hundreds
312 TRIADS OF TIME [SC. OF
the experience of dreams, reveries, and other extraordi-
nary or abnormal psychic conditions, as in hypnotism and
trance. The same is the case with the standard of time
with reference to waking consciousness ; quick steps make
short distances, slow paces make long ones ; sorrow
lengthens, joy shortens time ; i.e., the quick or the slow
passing of time is something subjective, and the real
significance of the length or shortness of time is also sub-
jective, being only the feel of such length or shortness.
In view of the increasing rapidity of means of transit,
people now, often, speak of distances in terms of time
* it is so many hours ' to a place rather than in terms of
space, so many hundred miles. 1
With reference to Self, Time may be said to present
the triplicity of beginning, end, and middle ; beginning,
a<JI or arambha, i.e., the affirmation of the 4 6tat ' or its
origin ; ' end,' anta or avasana, its negation ; and the
* middle/ madhya, which holds together both.*
The inevitable perpetual appearance and disappear-
ance, and disappearance and reappearance, of each 'etat'
* this,' due to the double necessity of being limited on the
one hand, and yet being also, on the other hand, in the
indissoluble relation of contact with the eternal Self,
forces upon it a pseudo-eternal succession of its own,
of miles distant, is unable to say whether the train has been moving at
all, or how far, or how long. For an excellent collection of concrete
illustrations of the illusions of space, time, and motion, see S. T. Klein's
Science and the Infinite, ch. i, and Mystic Experiences, or Tales from
Yoga Vasishtha.
1 Cf. the use of the expression " light years ".
or 3?rc**r ;
P., CH. XII] MEANING OF IMMORTALITY 313
*p
apart, as it were, from its identifications and disjunctions
with the Self, and gives us another aspect of the same
thing. This is that most current form of the trinity
inherent in Time, viz., ' past, present, and future,' bhuta,
bhavat or vartamana, and bhavishya, or ' before, now, and
after,' as viewed from the standpoint of the Not- Self.' 1
In this second aspect is contained the secret of per-
sonal immortality in brief/ Every etat, ' this,' being
once in touch with the Eternal, must be marked with
that eternity for ever. There is no succession of once,
twice, thrice, etc., in the Eternal ; but every separate
etat is under the sway of such succession, and there is a
contradiction, an impossibility indeed, involved in the
juxtaposition, the coming together and the uniting, of
the successionless and the successive. But the two are
in contact, there, before us, all around us, irresistibly
bound together by and in the Nature of the Absolute.
This ' antinomy of the reason ' is soluble only by imposing,
on the successive, the false and illusive appearance of the
or SffiUR and
2 To remember, to know, to realise, that '/ am Immortal ', is to
become Immortal, is to attain, to achieve, Immortality. Sanat-suj&ja
G*t& (included in Mbh.) records a dialogue between
and the great rshi.
arft i
314 APPEARANCE, DIS-APPEARANCE [SC. OF
%
successionless, the eternal, which simultaneously includes
all moments of time, once, twice, thrice, first, second,
third, etc., by making every * this ' pseudo-eternal, for-
ever-eternal, ever-lasting, in short. Therefore, every
' this ' appears and vanishes and reappears throughout
' Sanat-sujata ! Reverend Sir ' I hear thy teaching is : There is no
Death. 1 also hear that gods and titans practised Brahma-charya for
long periods, to secure Deathlessness. Which of the two is true ? Please
instruct me'. ' Kshattriya !, both are true. Some say Immortality is
won by effort and right action ; others says that Death- (is) Is-Not.
Both views are current in the world to-day, and both are true. The
Great Wise Poets hold that Infatuated Forgetfulness alone (of the
fact that I is-am Immortal) is Death ; and, following them, I say that
Infatuated Error (i.e., the Error, a-vidya of believing that ' I is-am some-
thing perishable, fleeting ') is Death, and alert Aware-ness (that I-am-I
eternally, and the True Knowledge, Viclya, that Death-Is-Not, Death K
Naught, is Immortality.
But to this should be added the further consideration that * All is
I, Yea, All is I ' , and that this is the true Personal as well as Im-
personal Immortality. Each ' you ' , each momentary ' you ' is also
(potentially) immortal , because touched by the ' All-You-He-She-lt-l ',
All-Consciousness ; because kept in Its Memory by the Universal Mind ,
' In God's Memory is all being bound ' ; in that 33flfg-|Tr1 > , samashti-
jnana, (P. -A. ilw-i-ijma'tt, aql-i-kul), is everything recorded and pre-
served for ever and ever.
Philosophy, the Search for Truth, begins in an acute desire for
Personal Immortality, for redress of all wrongs, for abolition of all pain
and all evil. It ends in, is accomplished, achieved, fulfilled, completed,
in the disappearance of that desire, and its replacement by the assur-
ance, the realisation, of Universal, Impersonal, All-Personal, Im-
mortality, and Self-identification-dissociation with all good -as- well-as-evil,
all happiness-as-well-as-misery. as Kabir says : 1*1 1*1 1C ^I^R *1I%,
' a prophet lies buried in earth beneath your feet, at every step you
take ' ; and Hamlet cries : " Imperious Caesar dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away ' . Atoms are incessantly
changing from the sheath of one jiva to that of another. The atom-
portion is in-destructible, in its own way ; the jiva-portion is also such,
m its. Personality. ' I am separate from all other I's, is also afeelmg, an
373:5^1-1^, antah-karana-vytti, a ' mood of mind ', which arises in a
conjunction of (an) aham -I with (an) etat-this. Analysed tf it vanishes.
' You want to be immortal ; but which You ? Yesterday's, to-day's,
or tomorrow's? * Each is different, more or less; less, as the time,
interval is less; more, as more. To be 'all-Persons' is the true
' Personal as well as Impersonal Immortality.'
P., CH. XIl] AND RE-APPEARANCE 315
all time (i.e., in the endless consciousness of the jiva),
again and again, as a firefly in the black darkness qf
a cloud-shut night of the rain-time in the tropics. Hence,
while, in one sense, mukti is eternal, or timeless, having
no beginning and no end, as viewed from the standpoint
of Pratyag-atma or Param-atma ; in another sense, it is
always beginning and always ending, from the standpoint
of Mula-prakrti. In other words, the individual jiva, viewed
as identical with Pratyag-atma, and so with Param-
atma, is never bound and never freed. As such, it
can scarcely be said ever to become mukta. It is
above and beyond both bandhana, bondage, and moksha ;
liberation ; indeed both are in it always, rather than it in
them ever. 1 But viewed as identical with a piece of
Mula-prakrti, an * 6tat,' a * this ', it is always, in literally
endless repetition, falling into bondage, i.e., into identifi-
cation with, and voluntary imprisonment in, a body, and
getting out of that bondage again into liberation, i.e.,
separation from, and out of, that prison-house. This is
why we read in Pur anas that the highest gods and
rshis, although all muktas, * free,' ' emancipated,' still,
without exception, return again and again, cycle after
cycle, kalpa after kalpa, passing and repassing endlessly
through the spirals, retaining, every one of them, like all
other jlvas, their centres of individuality through
' Not sin, nor merit ; not bondage, nor liberation , not joy, nor
sorrow ; this is the Final and Supreme Attainment.'
316 REFLECTION AND RE-REFLECTION [SC. OF
pralayas as through ordinary nights, despite apparent
lass (from the standpoint of lower planes of matter) of
their defining and demarcating circumferences. But
immense complications are introduced into this incessant
evolution and involution, by the ever-mutable and ever-
changing nature of every * 6tat,' ' this,' ' object '. These
complications are pseudo-infinite and therefore utterly
unresolvable and incomprehensible in their entirety by
any individual within limited time and space.
To illustrate the reflection and re-reflection of the
triplicity of the Absolute everywhere, as of a light
between two mirrors, and also the changes, in corres-
pondence with changes in points of view ; we may say
that in this triplet of ' past, present, and future/ yielded
to us by looking at Time with reference to Not-Self ; the
present is the nexus, or Na, Not, between the past as
jnana and the future as kriya ; or, again, the future may
be regarded as the nexus which will connect together
and reproduce both past and present ; or, the past may
be thought of as having contained both the present and
the future. The three make a circle, and we may start
at any point in it.
Finally, Time, viewed with reference to Negation,
may be said to yield the mathematical triplet of ' moment,
period, and cycle,' kshapa, samaya, and yuga, or kshana,
yuga, and kala-chakra. 1
In symbology, time is Kala, the * dark,' the ' mover,'
and the ' destroyer, death, 1 all three in one. It is
P., CH. XIl] CYCLES WITHIN THE ENDLESS SPIRAL 317
pictured as the vast-sweeping Garuda that conveys, from
place to place as need for giving help arises, the god of
jfiana, Vishnu ; Garuda, the eagle with the two all-
covering wings of the past and future, whose sole food
and means of sustenance are the small cycle-serpents
(that, though belonging to the family of the ' end less '
An anta, form part of the retinue of Shiva, the god of
ichchha), one of which he eats up every day of his life
by ordinance of the Creator, It may also be the Vana-
mala, ' wreath of forest-flowers ', that Vishnu wears,
representing the endless chain of life-moments strung
together' by the thread of cognitive consciousness. It is
also the Sudarshana-Chakra the blazing ' sight-pleasing,
beautiful-appearing, Discus- Wheel,' which overpowers
all, which nothing can withstand. It is the Wheel of Life,
which Tribetan Lamaism has adopted as the chief symbol
of the World-Process. Yet again, it is the thousand-hooded
serpent-king, Ananta, ' without end,' Shesha, ' the ever-
remaining,' who on his countless heads and coils sup*
ports with ease the divine frame of Vishnu as well as the
globes of the heavens, one of whose visible forms is the
Milky Way, and whom alone, of all the snakes, the eagle
Garuda is powerless to touch. 1
: I Bhagavafai ' Vishnu, god of know-
ledge, is borne along by Garuda, who is composed, of the songs of the
Veda/ 'the music of the Spheres'. Elsewhere, the picturing is in
terms of T/l-Wf, ' the sacrificial Boar '.
Vishnu-Bh&gavata. XII, xi, gives other explanations of these sym-
bols, and Pranava-vdda still others ; all different ways of looking at
the same thing, not inconsistent with each other. Kala or Maha-Kala
is one of the names of Shiva, i.e., Brahma, even as Kham or Space is.
318 SYMBOLOGY [SC. OF
It may be noted here that the Purnaic story assigns
Garuda, here regarded as corresponding to Time and
Not-Self, as vehicle to Vishnu, the god of sattva, jnana,
cognition, corresponding to Self. "It similarly assigns
the ' rosary of human heads/ here said to correspond to
Space and Self, to Shiva, the god of ichchha, desire cor-
responding to Negation. Even more perplexing than
these, it assigns Lakshml-Shakti, the goddess of all
wealth, splendour, glory, and activity, as consort, to
Vishnu, and SarasvatI- Shakti, the goddess of jnana,
knowledge, to Brahma, the god of action. The Shakti of
Gaurl-Kali (white-black, life-death, affirmation-negation),
the goddess of ichchha, is of course assigned to Shiva,
the god of destruction, and also of all * auspiciousness '
and blessings. In Rahasya-traya? SarasvatI is said to
be the sister of Vishnu ; and Lakshml the sister of
Brahma ; and Vishnu takes Lakshmi in marriage and
SarasvatI is given to Brahma. 2 All these and similar
other apparent inconsistencies may be reconciled by
this consideration, viz., one factor of any trinity is pre-
dominant no doubt, in any one individual, and is regarded
as essential to that individual's being, as constituting his
peculiar nature ; still the other two factors are also
, , ' Of movers, moving forces, I am (or is) the
greatest, Kala, Time '. Compare the English expressions, * his day is
over,' ' his time has come ', ' your time is up ', ' time cures '. Time as
cause is the spirit, the genius, of the time ; as result, it is the era or
epoch, as Maha-bharata says.
1 Ch. i. See also Nila-kantha's commentary on pevi-Bhagavata
III, 1, 85.
- Pevl-Bhagavata. Ill ,. vi.
P., CH. XIl] MOTION. ITS TRIADS 319
necessarily present in or about him ; otherwise his peculiar
nature too could not manifest and would not be ; and
then they are symbolised as his shaktis, ' powers ',
vehicles, apparel, ornaments, etc. Right knowledge should
result in right action and lead to wealth and splendour ;
so Vishnu marries Lakshml. Action should be guided
by knowledge ; so Brahma marries Sarnsvati. And so on. 1
(C) MOTION
We have seen above how the eternal Negation of
Not-Self by Self appears as a movement, chalana, gamana,
ayana, of mergence and e-mergence, ni-majjana and
un-majjana, between the two, because of the limitation
of the ' this '. The third, which completes and binds
together this duality of ' mergence and e-mergence/ may
be regarded as the ' continual recurrence ' of the process,
as continual juxtaposition, sam-majjana, permeation,
pervasion. 2 This movement, considered metaphysically,
in the abstract, is the primary and essential principle
1 No doubt, in every national or racial mythology, found at present,
there are many simple Nature-myths, in which the ' children of Nature ' ,
primitive humans, have simple-mindedly (yet often with profoundly wise
poetical instinct) anthropo-morphised Nature-phenomena, facts and
forces, in terms of their daily experience. At the same time, there are
to be found, in many mythologies, deliberately constructed symbolical
myths. This is especially true of PurSmc Mythology, almost the whole
of which (and it is very large and complex) has an elaborately artificial
character, stamping it as symbolical and allegorical.
, *WR f 3Hf? | fa-TSffi, 3tJT*H, *T-JT*ffi I Other aspects
would be expressed by ^MsHft fiMflSR P? 7 ?"!, san-kochana
vi-kasana spandana, contraction-expansion-throbbing ,
320 CONSEQUENCES [SC. OF
which underlies and determines all the motion that
appears in the World-Process ; and it gives us the triplicity
inherent in Motion as appearing from the standpoint
of Self.
From the standpoint of Not-Self we derive another
aspect of Motion. It is embodied in, and issues from,
the fact that each ' this,' besides the movement into and
out of Self, which it is continuously subject to, in conse-
quence of the whole-law of the logion, has also a special
motion of its own, in consequence of the part-law of that
logion. ' This ' is the opposite of ' I ' in every respect,
and the eternal completeness and fulness, the freedom
from change and motion, of * I,' is necessarily matched
by the limitation and therefore imperfection of each
separate ' this ' ; and the motion of each separate ' this *
is the necessary expression of its endless want and
changefulness. If the ' etats ', ' this-es ', could be really
steady and unmoving points in endless space, not feeling
any want, and therefore not moving, then the contradic-
tion would arise that the Whole and each part were
equal, being both perfect. Hence the Whole, i.e., absolute
Brahma, Param-atma, and, as identical with it, Pratyag-
atma also, is often described as a centre without a
circumference, or conversely, a circle without a centre,
or as that which is all centres only, or is everywhere a
nish-shvasana uch-chhvasana shvasana, in-breath-
ing out-breathing breathing ; 553? -flSH-flWI, layana-sarjana-sam-
sarana, disappearing re-appearing procession ; m3f^-5lll
ni-vflti pra-vjtti anu-viftti, retiring-advancing-circling ; and so on.
P., CH. XIl] NO SPACE-TIME WITHOUT MOTION 321
centre and nowhere a circumference, or everywhere a
circumference and nowhere a centre, and so on. This
is verifiable practically by everyone without much diffi-
culty. Sitting in a quiet place, shutting in the senses,
fixing the consciousness upon itself, i.e., Pratyag-atma,
the universal inward Self, and regarding and denying the
whole mass of practiculars summed up as a single Not-
Self, the meditator loses all sense of Time and Space and
Motion, and the whole of the universe, Not-Self and
himself, seems shut up into a single moveless point of
consciousness. Space and Time would not exist if such
Motion, as between a particular etat and another parti-
cular etat, and, indeed, between all possible Stats, did
not exist. In other words, this second motion is
necessarily due to the fact that each etat, ' this ', being
opposed to the omnipresent, infinite and eternal, un-
limited, ' I,' has to oppose it at every point of the whole
of its endless being ; and thus reproduces and reflects in
itself a pseudo-omnipresence. This pseudo-omnipresence
of the limited etat, en-souled by and en-form-ing a self,
takes shape as, becomes, is, endless and perpetual Motion
everywhere, from moment to moment or period to period
of Time, and from place to place, from point to point, of
Space. It cannot accomplish the law and achieve,
manifest, fulfil, its nature in any other way. 1
1 Similarly to be interpreted are the psuedo-omniscience and the
pseudo-omnipotence, in potentiality, of each jiva ; each self, as identical
with Self, must know and deny, must identify itself with and repel, every
6tat ; and yet it cannot do so, as regards all tats, at once ; hence,
always a greater and greater compassing, and letting go, and beginning
afresh .
21
322 OTHER TRIADS OF MOTION [SC. OF
Other ways of describing the fact are these : Motion
is the perpetual endeavour of the limited to become
unlimited ; of the successive to achieve simultaneity ; of
the finite to secure infinity ; it is the constant struggle
of Space, or extension, and Time, or intension, to coincide,
and to collapse into the perfect Rest, the single point,
the rockboundness of Absolute-Consciousness.
This second view of motion, with reference to Not-
Self, gives us the triplet of ' approach, recess, and
revolution, 1 or ' centripetal, centrifugal, and orbital
motion,' upa-sarpana, apa-sarpana, and pra-sarpana or
pari-bhramana. 1
Finally, with reference to Negation, we have the
mathematical triplet, in Motion, of ' linear, rotatory and
spiral,' * rju-bhramana, chakra-bhramana, and avarta-
bhramana, corresponding to Self, Not-Self, and Negation.
These three motions sum up in themselves all the possible
motions of Samsara, as may be pictured by the diagram
on p. 432, vol. iii, of The Secret Doctrine (Adyar edn.), if
the spines shown therein along the outer side of the single
line, whose convolutions make up the whole diagram,
were also made parts of, and continuous with, that same
single line, and the line were shown as constantly coiling
1 Some physicists regard vibratory or oscillatory motion as a third
primary form of motion, side by side with the translatory or free-path
or linear, and the rotary or circular. (Vide Dolbear, Ether, Matter,
and Motion, iii.) But it will probably be found on analysis, that
vibratory, undulatory, and all other forms of motion are compounded out
of elements of the primary kinds suggested in this and the preceding
paragraph.
an - *rf si - gfa or qft -
P., CH. XIl] SYMBOLOGY 323
and turning round and round upon itself, like a spiral
wire-spring, and all this line and process of coiling were
produced and carried round and round pseudo-infinitely.
This Motion, the first factor of the second trinity,
seems to be figured in the Puranas as the h a m s a, the
* swan '-vehicle of Brahma, the lord of Action, which
h a m s a (under another interpretation of the Upanishap-
text quoted before) circles with double beat of wing
incessantly in the great wheel or cycle of Brahma. It
may also be the mala, rosary of crystal beads, that
Brahma ever turns around and tells in his right hand,
in constant movement, weaving all single vibrations into
one, on the thread of the action-consciousness. It may,
yet again, be the ever twisting, turning, rolling stream of
holy Ganga stored within the same god's ' bowl ' of
sacred waters, the kamandalu. 1
Before passing on to our next subject of discussion,
the individual self, or jlva, we may note that although
Space and Time and Motion have, like Pratyag-atma,
Mula-prakrti, and Negation, been treated of in successive
order, this is only because of the limitations of speech,
which, as has been said, can proceed only is succession.
It must not be imagined, any more as regards the former
trinity than as regards the latter, that there is any
1 The statements made in this work as to symbology, it should
be borne in mind, are only suggestive. They have no immediate
importance here with reference to the general principles underlying the
constitution of the kosmos, which are attempted to be outlined in this
work, primarily. That they are made at all is only in the hope that the
suggestions may be of use and possibly give some clue to students who
may take an interest in working out, with the help of purSnic legends,
the details which issue out of the general principles described here.
324 THE WHY OF PERPETUAL MOTION [SC. OF
precedence or succedence amongst the three. They are
perfectly synchronous, utterly inseparable, all equally
important, and all equally dependent with and on each
other, and also with and on the primal trinity, of Self,
Not-Self, and Negation. And all these trinities, again,
co-inhere in and are inseparable from jlv-atma, jiva-atom,
jlva-unit, which combines and manifests in itself all of
them, and therefore is ' the immortal beyond doubt and
fear/ if it will only so recognise itself.
He who grasps this secret of the heart of Motion,
Time, and Space, will understand Vasishtha's riddle that
' all is everywhere and always '. 1 For jlva is the tireless
weaver that, on the warp and woof of Time and Space,
with the shuttle 'of Motion, weaves eternally the count-
less-coloured tapestry of all this multifarious illusion -
world, carrying the whole plan thereof incessantly within
itself, and so carrying ' all/ ' always ' and ' everywhere ' in
one. If we turn our eyes to the warp and the woof and
the shuttle, we see but the endless tapestry of Penelope
that never progresses and never regresses, though worked
incessantly. Law requires more law, and that again more
still ; to fulfil and justify the opposed necessities, to
reconcile the contradictions of the constitution of the
1 And also, incidentally, that orderliness or disorderliness in the
conduct of the affairs of this ' maya-illusion ' of samsara, the perpetually
moving world, depends entirely upon the right or wrong use of these
three 'emptinesses/ viz., space, time, and motion. To make a proper
division of these three, to perform fixed actions at fixed times in
fixed places, is to be orderly ; to do otherwise is to be disorderly. But it
has to be borne in mind that both order and disorder are relative, and
both, ultimately, wholly subjective. To prove to itself that it is not the
slave of any particular order, the Self indulges in all kinds of ' dreams '.
P,, CH. XIl] THE GREAT PLAY 325
Absolute, one process is invented ; that shows defect,
another is invented ; that breeds only new grievances,
they are amended ; ten more start up, new laws appear
to cover them ! A laughable yet very serious, a fearful
yet all-beautiful, an exceeding simple yet most awesome
and stupendous Hla, pastime and child's-play. An untold
and untellable, a veritably exhaustless, richness of variety,
which is yet but the thinnest Maya and pretence to hide
the unruffled calm and sameness of the Self. A heart of
utter peace within mock-features of infinite unrest and
toil and turmoil. Thus ever goes on this endless,
countless, strictly and truly pseudo-infinite complication,
this repetition over repetition, reproduction of re-
production, and reflection within reflection. Yet is
it ever reducible at any moment of Space and Time
and Motion, as soon as the jiva really chooses to
reduce it so, by simply turning round its gaze upon itself
into the eternal peace of the simple formula of the
logion : Aham Etat Na, * I (am)-this-Not. This is so,
because the complications are not outside of the jiva, but,
as soon as it realises its identity with the universal Self,
within it. Forgetting, as it were, its own true nature, it
creates them in and by the very act of running after them
till it becomes giddy, ready to fall down in depair with
its o\vn whirlings, all in vain, like a snake chasing its
own tail, which it would find and seize more surely as
part of its own self if it but gave up its mad gyrations,
and turned back upon it quietly and peacefully and rested
still. ' The Self-born pierced the senses outwards, hence
326 COUNTLESS PAINTINGS ON EMPTY SPACE [SC. OF
the jiva seeth the outer world, and not the inner Atma.
A wise one here and there turneth back his gaze, from
outward to inward, desirous of immortality, and beholdeth
the inward Self.' ]
fMnft,
fag
(O silent Sleeper in this seething Sea !
Plain we behold, and yet speech may not be.
We wander, wonder, search, and then we find,
But find it in the silence of the mind.
Who will believe the marvel, if we say,
Though it be plain, plain as the light of day,
That on the boundless wall of Nothingness,
A Painter full of skill but bodiless,
Limns phantom figures that will never fade,
Though to efface them time has e'er essayed,
Limns forms of countless colours ceaselessly,
O serene Sleeper of this^ stormy Sea !)
^_-* Pas, Vinaya Patrika, Hymn No. 112, to
*'Ke-shava,' i.e., Vishnu * sleeping in the waters '.
NOTE I. The word f pastime ' may perhaps be thought
objectionable, as likely to jar the feelings of least some
P., CH. XIl] DRAMA NEEDS TRAGEDY-COMEDY 327
earnest -minded thinkers who are holders of serious views as
to the destinies of man, his relation to God, and the
general purpose of creation or evolution. Readers, who, not
content with the solutions now extant of the problems of
life, find it worth while to read to the end of this book
systematically, will, it is earnestly believed, find that the
view of life advocated herein, is not inconsistent with, or
exclusive of, any. They will see that it rather includes all
the deepest views of, and the highest-reaching wishes for,
the future of man, that have been entertained by the most
honoured thinkers and well-wishers of their fellow men, so
far as such may be ascertained from published writings.
An endless progressiveness, an infinite perfectibility, an
ever closer approach to the ever -expanding Divine, are hoped
for here also for the human race, most sincerely and strongly.
Only, in this work, this view is regarded as constituting not
the whole, but only half the truth ; as being that aspect of
the Truth which is visible from the standpoint of the indi-
vidual jiva pursuing the philosophy of Change and its corres-
ponding worship. The other and supplementary half is that,
from the standpoint of the universal Self, there is no progress
and no regress, No change of any kind, so that if that condi-
tion may be described at all in terms of the Changing, then
the only words to use are * Pastime,' ' Play,' * unfettered
Will/ * uncontrolled outgoing of Life,' ' unresisted and irresis-
tible manifestation of the inner Nature,' ' the unquestionable
Will of God,' * Thy will be done,' ' Who shall question Him ?'
' My will and Pleasure/ 'the Pleasure of the Univeral Self/
etc. Are the free rompings of the child, and the vigorous
games of youth, and the vast industries of peace (and un- happily
also war) of a nation's matured manhood, that are but as
means to the child's rompings and the youth's games are
these such a slur upon life that the word ' Pastime ' should
jar upon the serious-minded ? Are not, rather, happy homes
the very essence of a nation's life, and the child's and the
mother's bright smile and laugh and play the very essence
of the ' home ' ? Play is a thing as serious at least as work,
in the well-balanced life. And, while this idea is yielding
up to him its full significance, let the reader bear in mind that,
as shown by the above inadequate translation from Tulasi Das,
328 PERIODIC WAKING-SLEEPING [SC. OF
a devotee of devotees, whose book, the Ramayana, has been
the Bible of hundreds of millions of Hindus, for the last
three hundred years this idea, that the world is the Pastime
of the Self has been entertained with loving fervour by at
least some of the most earnest-minded of men. Vyasa him-
self, in his Brahma-sutra (II, i, 33), expressly uses this very
word ' LilaY as the final explanation, together with ' Kai-
valyam,' of the appearance and the disappearance of the
manifested world : * Play, and Retirement into Sleep and
Solitude, as of the ordinary human being/ This book will
indeed have tailed in its purpose if it leaves behind the im-
pression that devotion to individual Ishvaras, embodying, in
greater or lesser degree, the universal and impersonal ideal,
has been scoffed at and belittled herein, rather than made in-
finitely stronger and deeper and more unshakable by being
placed on the firm foundations of reason. Also, indeed, the
dire tragedies that are enacted in the world, every moment,
would harrow up sensitive souls irredeemably, overwhelming
all sense of the equal number of comedies that also are en-
acted at the same time necessarily, (for the pain of one is the
pleasure of another and vice versa), and destroying all faith
in the mercy, justice, goodness of God, were it not possible to
assure them that all these awful heart-crushing agonies, (as
also the dance and laughter), are, verily, as unreal to the
Univeral Self, as theatre-plays are to the human spectator.
" God felt defect ", " He took no Joy in His Sole-ness,
Soli-tude ", " He willed : May I be Many ", " He Want-ed to
love and be loved ", " He willed the creation, that His Glory
may be known and praised" such are the causes assigned
for the creation of the world by a Personal Creator, even by
devout minds. They all, on the least analysis, come only to
Lila, Play, in order to Pass-Time, and En-com-Pass-Space,
and sur-Pass-Motion.
NOTE II. The last four lines, in bold type, of p. 314,
may seem to need further explication. How to be all persons ?
How be personal as well as all-personal, Im-personal or Non-
personal ? How be mortal and also Immortal ? The subject
will probably become clear if the reader will endeavour
to understand thoroughly, the nature of (a) Param-atma,
P., CH. XIl] ALL JIVAS ARE EQUAL, ALL INFINITE 329
Pratyag-atma, Mula-prakrti, (b) }iv-atma, (c) the connection
between them all, as expounded in the preceding pages. He
may also read carefully what is said in this book, in several
places, supra as well as infra, on the subject of * individuality '
and ' individuals within individuals '. Finally and this may
perhaps help him most he should consider the case of the
novelist or dramatist-actor who, while always conscious ' at
the back of his mind ', that he is not identical with any of the
hundreds, or thousands, of characters and parts which he
creates, yet identifies himself, for the time being, with each
of these characters or parts ; and, in fact, the more thorough
such identification, the more realistic and successful his
portraiture or acting. Any reader also, of a really fine novel
or drama or even history (if it is properly written), may enter
so thoroughly into the spirit of each character, that he may
(as it were) forget ' his own proper self ' for the time, and feel
as if he was that character, present in those surroundings, and
undergoing those experiences. Many dreams are so vivid that
when we recall them a {sufficiently long time afterwards 1 we
begin to doubt and wonder if we did not actually and really
pass through that experience while awake. Children on the
one hand, and, on the other, very old men, are especially liable
to such ' illusions '. In ' reveries ', which are ' waking
dreams ', we lose ourselves entirely in and into ' other
worlds '.
Also, all jiva-s have to pass through all experiences, turn
by turn.
T: | Brhad Vp.\.$ 13.
' All these are equal ; all are infinite '.
4 Among these, none is greater, none smaller '.
Mbh.. ShSnti, ch. 291.
330 ALL EXPERIENCES COME TO EACH BY TURNS [SC.
' None is ultimately higher, none is ultimately lower ;
none has, in the nett result, on the whole, a farther, higher,
finer reach than any other. Knowing this, that (temporary)
misfortune which may cause serious fear and distress to the
unwise person who does not know the Truth, leaves the wise
one, who knows the Truth, unshaken f .
\
Mbh., Shanti, ch. 25.
' Joy and sorrow, growth and decay, gain and loss, life
and death, come to each and all, turn by turn. Therefore,
let none be depressed, none be elated ; let all always maintain
an equable mind.
3RSJc4 qftlTTOWT^l %<J: I Yoga-Sutra, in. 15.
* Differences in the order of succession of (the very same)
experiences are the cause of those differences of personality or
individuality which are marked by or accompany special
births in special types of bodies '.
" To realise the bliss in Devachan, or the woes in Avitchi>
you have to assimilate them as we do " ; The Mahatma
Letters, p. 194. ' We ' here means the Masters, Adepts, Rshis.
See also the illustrations, by various examples, of what
makes the illusion of difference between persons, individuals,
or individualities, given on pp. 59-60 and 173-174 of The
Science of the Self \ pp. 62-63 and 411-413 of World War
and Its Only Cure World Order and World Religion ; and,
in The Essential Unity of All Religions, the sections, in
Chap. Ill, on 'The Mutual Balancing of Pleasures and
Pains f and ' Personal and Impersonal Devotion.*
CHAPTER XIII
JlVA-ATOMS
(A) GENERALLY
BEFORE proceeding further we may make a brief
retrospect.
From the confusion of the world we travelled slowly
and laboriously to the Absolute. In that we saw the
first trinity, of Self, Not-Self, and Negation. 1 We saw
again that Self was triple, Sat-Chid-Ananda ; Not-Self
was triple, Rajas- Sattva-Tamas ; the affirmative Shakti-
Energy of Negation was triple, Srshti-Sthiti-Laya ; and,
finally, that (the negative shunyata, ' emptiness ', of)
Negation itself was also triple, Desha-Kala-Kriya.
We also saw that each one of this last trinity
was again triple in its own turn. We may also have
noticed, in passing, that the whole, the aggregate, of any
three, might, in a sense, be regarded as a fourth which
summarised and completed them all. We also had a
glimpse of the fact that these trinities and triplets are all
combined in the jiva-atom which, because of this fact,
1 " The One can, when manifesting, become only Three. The Un-
manifested, when a simple duality, remains passive and concealed.
The dual monad (the 7th and 6th principles), has, in order to manifest
itself, to first become a triad"'. The Mahatma Letters, 347; see
also p. 346. It would be useful for the student to try to translate the
symbols used there into the abstract terms used here.
332 DEFINITION OF ATOM [SC. OF
contains, in seed, the whole of the World-Process in
itself. After this brief resume we may go on to consider
jiva-atoms in a little more detail,
Etat, ' This,' is by necessity Many, by opposition to
the One-ness of the Aham, the ' I ', Self, and each of these
Many, by opposition to the Self's unlimitedness and chang-
lessncss, and, again, by mutual exclusion and limitation,
under the stress of Negation, is limited, and trebly limited,
in space, time, and motion; i.e., it has got a pari-
m a n a, dimension, extension, size in space, by limitation
on this side and on that ; a spanda or sphurana,
a vibration in motion, a pendulum-swing, a revolution
within the area of a radius, limited movement, which is
necessarily made rhythmic by the fact of limitation in
space and time ; and an a y u, 1 a duration, a life-period,
a limited succession, in time. Such is the general des-
cription of the atoms which make up Mula-prakrti, the
very essence of which is Manyness, atomicity. The
atom is an etat, a * this,' having limited size, duration,
and motion ; it cannot apparently be defined more simply
or comprehensively anywise else.
But an tat, ' this,' cannot exist apart from
Aham, ' I ' ; Mula-prakrti is inseparable from Pratyag-
atma. Each ' this ' is indissolubly connected with
, ; aTrg I This word ajfg, and 3TRmr, ayama,
extension, and 3T*IT, ayana, movement, seem to be connected to-
gether in a suggestive and significant way, (though etymologically
different) , but the latter two are not very current now in the general
meanings mentioned. Hence the other corresponding words have been
given above.
P., CH. Kill] MUTUAL BORROWING OF ATTRIBUTES 333
4 1,' by the double bond of ' am ' and ' am not* ' am r
representing the ascending phase of the metabolism of the
life-process, and ' am not ' the descending phase thereof.
From all this it follows necessarily that the one Self
becomes limited off into a pseudo-infinite number of
* aham-s,' jlvas or jivatmas ; that every ' aham ' is em-bod-
ied in an ' tat ', and every ' etat ' is en-sowJ-ed by an
' aham ; ' and that every one of these pseudo-infinite atoms
that make up Mula-prakrti is therefore living. Each such
living atom, combining in itself Pratyag-atma and Mula-
prakrti, is an individual, an individualised jiva-atom. 1
And we may note that as each atom is a ' this,' having
definite size, duration, and vibration, so is each jiva an
' I/ having a definite extent or reach of consciousness,
indicated by the body (' the soul made visible ') which it
wears, an age or lifetime, and a restless activity of mind.
The Samskrt words denoting these aspects of the jiva
are also the same as for the aspects of the atom, except
that, in place of the word parimana, dimension, the word
kshetra, the ' field ' (of consciousness) is more cqmmon-
ly used/
, STJT
I Chhandogya, I, i, 5-6. ' This pair, voice
(speech) and breath, hymn and melody, both come together in the
Imperishable Word-sound Om (Aum) ; and when the Two come together,
they fulfil all their Desire and desires for each other.'
2 Or 3fl3IT3*?N: ; jati-ayur-bhoga, in the words of the Yoga-sUtra.
i e a sheath or body extended in space, a lifetime, and a sum-total of
experiences. For the word kshetra, see GI#i f ch. xiii.
334 ONE BECOMES MANY; MANY, ONE [SC. OF
These attributes, it is clear, appear in the jiva with
reference to the primary attributes of Negation, viz.,
space, time, and motion.
With reference to the functions of the Shakti-aspect
of Negation, (i.e., the Energy of the I, hiding in M), viz.,
creation, preservation, and destruction, the attributes of
the jiva-atom may be said to be birth, life, and death ;
or, in other words, growth, stagnation, and decay ; corres-
ponding to attraction, balancing, and repulsion.
In such a jiva-atom, mutual imposition of the attri-
butes of each, Self and Not-Self, is complete ; in collaps-
ing together they have taken on the properties of one
another ; and the jiva-atom therefore shows, in its own
individuality, the phenomenon of permanence in imper-
manence and impermanence in permanence, oneness in
manyness and manyness in oneness. The one Pratyag-
atma becomes many individuals ; the many Mula-prakrti
becomes organised ones, each indestructible, each having a
personal immortality, or unending duration, and a pseudo-
infinity of endless stretch of consciousness, as also the
true eternity and infinity of Pratyag-atma. In strictness,
the reflection of the One in the Many should cause the
appearance of pseudo-infinite geometrical * points without
magnitude/ true 'centres,' which make the 'singular one,'
as opposed to and yet reproducing the 'universal One ' ;
but as, because of the other law, operating simultaneously
with equal force, viz., that the * this ' is limited as against
the unlimitedness of Aham, the point must have definite
limitation ; therefore, everywhere, we have jlva-atoms
P., CH. Xlll] ALL MATTER ANIMATE 335
having size, etc., as said before, in place of points, which,
however, always exist as possibilities, as abstract and
theoretical centres. Such definite jiva-atoms, considered
with greater reference to the atom-aspect, may be called
* particulars ' ; with greater reference to the jlva-aspect,
' individuals ' ; the individual, particular, or definite, be-
ing the reconciliation of the extremes of the singular and
the universal ; which ' extremes meet ' however, for
in-fin-itesimal centre and in-fin-ite circle are equally
in-de-fin-able, and are therefore undistingnishable, equal,
identical.
We see now what the real value of the distinction
between animate matter and inanimate matter is. Here,
as everywhere else, the truth lies in the mean, and error
in the two extremes. There is absolutely no matter at all
that is not en-Kiraw-ed, ensouled, inspired, animated by
spirit ; and also no spirit that is not in-/orm-ed with,
inclosed, inclothed, ensheathed, embodied, in matter. 1
This which is proved by its own irrefragable chain of
deductions to the inner, ' pure/ or higher reason, the
reason which looks at facts from the standpoint of the
universal Self ; as opposed to the outer, the ' impure,'
reason, which looks at them from the standpoint, and
with the egoistic clingings and limitations, of the indi-
vidual self this is now being proved even to the outward
senses by the admirable industry of modern physical
science. It has been shown by an elaborate and very
instructive series of facts and arguments : " that a
\ Mah&-bharaja, ShSntiparva, ch. 184.
336 FALSE ONE-SIDED VIEWS [SC. OF
fundamental difference, i.e., difference in the elementary
materials and the elementary forces, between organic and
inorganic bodies, does not exist," ' and that the differ-
ences between them " are no greater than the differences
between many inorganic substances, and consist merely,
in the mode of union of the elements ", 2 The scientists of
to-day have collected facts and performed experiments
which show conclusively that so-called inanimate and
inorganic matter responds to stimulus, and behaves
generally in the same manner as animate and organic
matter. 1 Hasty deductions from such facts, e.g., ' the
soul is but an electric current in another form,' ' matter
and spirit are identical,' are liable to misconstruction, and
rest really upon inaccuracy and misunderstanding. It
would be almost truer to say that * the electric current is
but soul in another form '. Minds that have not yet
learnt to look leisurely, calmly, and impartially, at both
sides of a question, and are still at the stage of taking
hurried, passionate, and one-sided views of it, with a
partisan zeal, either emphasise Matter too much and re-
solve Spirit entirely into it, or emphasise Spirit too much
and resolve Matter away entirely into it. This is the
result of looking at only one aspect, at one half, of
the two-sided whole. The whole Truth is that all Matter
is living, and all Life material ; that the pseudo-eternal
Motion of all Matter, in all its endless complication, is
1 Max Verworn, General Physiology, p. 336.
3 Ibid. , p. 272.
* Sir J. C. Bose, Response in the Living and the Non-Living,
P., CH. XIII] PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PARALLELISM 337
throughout accompanied, on an ineffaceable parallel, by
the fact of Consciousness, the fact of Life, now higher
and now lower in degree of manifestation, according to
the increased or decreased elaboration of the compli-
cations. 1 Etat and Aham can never be separated/ Yet
they are distinct also and can never be identified literally,
except as they both are ever merged, by Negation, in the
completeness and Self-sarneness of the Absolute'. They
are distinguishable, but not separable, in brief. This
psycho-physical parallelism is the inner meaning of the
Sankhya-doctrine, referred to before, viz., the constant
1 See The Mahatma Letters, pp, 60, 63. 65. 66. 67. and other pages
referred to in its index, against the words Matter. Spirit, Force ; and
endeavour to reconcile the seemingly inconsistent statements. The pre-
sent work may perhaps be of some use in the endeavour.
2 Therefore every mood of mind has a corresponding mode of matter.
in and through which it manifests. As countless radii meet in the
centre, so countless worlds meet in the soul-Jiva. mind-body And the
soul can pass from any radius to any other by coming back tc the centre.
i.e., it-Self, and issuing forth again thence. Hence, the scriptures say
that persons who cultivate such-and-such virtues or vices, noble or ignoble
sentiments, passions, feelings, emotions, tastes, interests, go to such and
such worlds, physical and superphysical, 'heavenly* or ' hellish,' by sheer
attraction in that direction. Consider how persons gravitate towards the
worlds of science or art or literature or business or administration, and to
one or other of the numerous sub-sub-divisions of these. The fact
that the nervous system (predominantly) serves the ' intellectual ' ; the
muscular, the ' actional ' ; the glandulo-vasculor, the ' emotional ' .
illustrates the same fact. A western writer has recently invented the
words ' cerebro-tomc '. ' somato-tonic ' , and ' viscero-tonic ' for the
three main temperaments and types of humans. Overloading of a langu-
age's vocabulary with a plethora of new coinages which are not really
necessary, is not desirable ; and the French are wise to keep their diction
and dictionary pure and limited, by the censorship of their Academy ;
though Herbert Spencer disapproves such limitation. JUut in this parti-
cular case, an advocate of Manu and Veda may welcome even the three
strange words as supporting his arguments
The reader may see, in this connection, pp 355-356 of The Science
of Social Organisation, vol. I ; pp. 32-34 of The Superphysics of War
(Adyar Pamphlets) \ and p. 79 of World War and its Only Cure
22
338 ANIMATE AND IN-ANIMATE NOT DISTINCT [SC. OF
con-currence or co-efficience of Consciousness with all
variations of Motion in Matter, which con-comitance or
co-incidence constitutes universal Life and makes those
Movements possible. This is all that Consciousness does ;
Atmi is a d h a r a, base, support, of all these motions ;
without it, they would have no meaning and would not
be. When all vital phenomena have been explained away
into atomic affinities, as is being attempted by modern
scientists anew, then the question would arise : Whence and
how and why these affinities ? The only answer is : The
Universal Consciousness imposes them on the atoms;
and the result is .that the whole series of explanations is
reversed ; belief in Vital Force is restored on a higher
level ; and all affinities become resolved into the vital
phenomena of one ever-living Universal Shakti. Of course,
real initiation of actions and movements by individual
consciousness is abolished even so ; but apparent initiation
remains untouched. What the whole truth is on this
point, may be gathered partially from what has been
already said about free-will, and. for the rest, from the
fuller discussion which may be held later on.
Distinction between animate and inanimate then
amounts to this, that, to the person noting the distinction
at any particular time and place, in the former, the ele-
ment of Pratyag-atma is more prominent and manifest,
while, in the latter, the element of Mula-prakrti is more
apparent.
Reason for this alternate predominance, now of the
one and now of the other, is the alternation of ' am ' and
P., CH. XIIl] INVERSE RATIO : NECROBIOSIS 339
4 am not '. When ' am ' is strong, we have the appear-
ance of c the living,' of crescent ' life,' of anabolism.
When ' am not ' prevails, then we have the phenomenon
of ' death,' ' the dying/ ' the dead,' ' the inert,' of kata-
bolism. In the strict sense of the words, * life ' and
* death ' are not correct here ; only ' living ' and * dying '
are proper. The scientific truth of necrobiosis, * dying
life ' or ' living death ', of gradual death, is voucher for
this fact. But like * animate ' and ' inanimate,' ' life ' and
* death ' have, as convenient words, a practical value,
though the facts can never in reality be separated ; living
and dying are going on constantly, incessantly, side by
side, and also one after another, because of the general
principles which underlie, as explained before, the triple
subdivisions of time, space, and motion ; for, (1) to say,
4 1 am this ejat,' is also to say at the same time, in the
same space, and by the same motion, ' I am not this other
etat ; ' and to say, ' I am not this etat,' is also to say,
4 1 am this other etat '. Again, (2) to say, * I am this ',
is to say later, in another time, space, and motion, ' I am
not (the same) this ; ' and vice versa. Finally, (3) it
is unavoidable to be saying, everywhere and always,
either * I am this,' or * I qm not this '. Thus it comes
about that every organism is living and dying, at the
same time, i.e., changing, and has also successively as-
cending and descending phases of metabolism. Thus are
Spirit and Matter, Life and Death, ever connected like
the two ends of the beam of a balance ; if one rises,
the other falls in equal degree ; if one falls, the
340 MUTUAL BORROWING OF ATTRIBUTES [SC. OF
other rises similarly ; but entirely separated they nevei"
can be.
It may be gathered from the above, that the word
' life/ as currently employed, means ' living and dying/
and ' death ' means ' dying and living '. Let us now see
more fully what death really means. When we hav6
done that, our information as to the essential significance
of one prominent aspect of the jlva-atom, the aspect of
animate-inanimate, will have been rounded out and com-
pleted in a way.
By the law of adhyasa, 1 mutual superimposi-
tion of attributes between the Self and the Not-Self,
the jlva-atom must begin and end in time, i.e., be
impermanent, and must at the same time be permanent.
Reconciliation of this contradiction 4s achieved in ever-
recurrent beginnings and endings." But how is this pos-
sible ? How can a thing, an etat, having once been, ever
cease to be, and if it once actually ceased to be, how
could it be again ? Necessity to obviate this objection
The word ' im-position ' is peculiarly ap-posite here.
Maya is the Great Impostor or Impostress, who ' imposes ' upon people ;
makes the false look like the true to them ; ' imposes ' false beliefs
upon them. The Greek word antidosis seems to mean the same
aghyasa. F, n. 4 on p. 17 of Gibbon's Roman Empire, vol. V, (Every-
man's Library series) says: "The antidosis of the Greeks, a mutual
loan or transfer of the idioms or properties (' idios '. one's own peculia-
rity) of each nature to the other of infinity to man, possibility (pass-
-ingness. transience, finiteness) to God, etc. Twelve rules on this
nicest of subjects compose the Theosophical Grammar of Petavius."
See p. 11, supra.
* 3?TrJTftSf?% Stewraftfc I Ny&ya-sutra. IV, i. 10, ' Because
^ Atma, Self, is eternal, therefore, it follows as a necessary consequence.
'that after having departed from one body, it becomes again, i.e., comes-
into another body ' .
P., CH. XIJl] TRIPT-E WORLD 341
creates at once new laws and facts. Firstly, the difficulty
is solved by (apparent) successive dissociations and re-
associations of ensouling inner jlva and ensheathing outer
bodies, i.e., transfer of the individual consciousness from
one body to another, and thence to yet another, and
so on. But having said this, it becomes necessary to
explain what is meant by inner jfva and outer
sheath, where we have been speaking of a single and
apparently homogeneous jiva-atom so far. Although
the jiva-atom is a * one,' yet again within that one there
is an irreducible and irrepressible duality indeed, a
trinity, strictly speaking ; as may appear later in connec-
tion with the explanation of the metaphysic of the
expression tri-bhuvana, the triple- world. 1 * I ' is
joined to etat by ' am ' in 'I (am) this ' ; yet they are
only joined ; the two cannot be literally identified. The
consequence of this is that we have an ' inner ' jlva,
self or soul, and an ' outer ' upadhi, sheath or body.
This inner self is something which, by its very
Pratyagatmic nature and constitution, is always elud-
ing sensuous grasp and definition. ' How and by what
may the knower be known ? " * It is Self-luminous.
Whenever we seek* consciously or unconsciously, to de-
fine It, we at once find in its place an upa<Jhi, a sheath,
as Indra found Uma Haima-vati/ a sheath subtler than
the previous one, from the standpoint of which as 'outer*
3 Brhad-aranyaka. II, iv, 14.
3 Kena Up, t Hi.
342 VEIL UPON VEIL [SC. OF
we started to secure this ' inner ' self ; subtler, no doubt,
but yet as undoubtably material. This 'inner' Self, the
* abstract,' would lose its very nature and falsify itself,
would no longer he 'inner' and 'abstract', if it could be
grasped. To be grasped means to be outer. Therefore
this Self ever recedes further and further inwards, within
a literally endless series of veil after veil, as we try to
follow it with the eye of sense, while to the eye of the
pure reason, that is to say, to It-Self, it is always present,
immovably stationary. The physical reflection of this
law, as found by physical science, is that " there exists
upon earth at present no living substance that is homo-
geneous throughout," and that " the living substance that
now exists upon the earth's surface is recognised only in
the form of cells, 1 ' each of which " contains, as its
essential constituents, two different substances, the pro-
toplasm and the nucleus,"' l (with a connecting third
kind, viz., chromatin-network); and the nucleus has been
found, on further investigation, to contain still inner cores
and sheaths, etc., viz., the nucleolus and other sub-
stances." 1 The truth is that, as more or less openly des
cribed in Yoga Vasishtha 3 and other works on Yoga and
V6danta, and in theosophical literature, the constitution
of man, and, indeed, of all living matter, is a plantain-
stem-like system of leaf-sheath within leaf-sheath, layer
1 Max Verworn, General Physiology, p. 296.
Ibid., p. 91 ; see also H. W. Conn : The Story of Life's Mecha-
nism.
* Vide story of Lila in Utpatti-Prakarana ; Mystic Kxpcrtcnces t
or Tales from Yoga-Vasishtha.'
P., CH. XIIl] RECIPROCAL BIRTH AND DEATH 34$
within layer, fold within fold, and shell within shell, all
interpenetrating one another, each distinguishable from
each, yet not wholly separable from each other, but
fringing off into each other by indefinable gradations.
And metaphysic adds that this must be so, not up to any
limited extent or definite number, which would be
arbitrary (except as regards any particular world-system,
which must necessarily deal with definite time, space, and
motion, arid therefore definite numbers of layers and
planes of matter, e.g,, litho-, hydro-, igni-, atmo-, ethero-,
etc., spheres) ; but pseudo-infinitely, which only is in
accordance with reason, when the whole of the World-
Process is taken into account. More about this may
appear later ' ; in the meanwhile what has been said may
suffice to show how we have the possibility, and there-
fore the necessity (for in the sight of metaphysic to
be possible is to be), of the phenomenon of death t
by the passing of the jiva from one outer and denser
body to another inner and subtler body. This outer
body, which, then, is left behind, is called dead from
the standpoint of the inner jiva, which has now
passed on to another sheath. And the inner jiva may
similarly be called dead from the point of view of the
dense body. There is a reciprocal severance of asso-
ciation and reciprocal death, a reciprocal cessation of
interchange, interplay, intervivification. The opposite
of death in this sense is * birth ' and not ' life ' ; and it
1 See the remarks on ' the three worlds or planes ' and ' the three
bodies ' in Ch. XV, on Jlvas, infra.
344 THREEFOLD WORLD LIKE TRIUNE MAN [SC. OF
may be defined in the same terms. If * death ' is the
transference of the individual consciousness from one
plane of e t a t-matter to another, birth is the same trans-
ference from another into the one. The same event
means a death in one plane or world, and a birth in
another. In other words, as death is reciprocal, so is
birth ; each dies to the other ; each is born away from the
other. The sleeping of the jlva in the s t h u 1 a or physical
body, on the physical plane of jag rat, ' waking*
consciousness, is its awakening in the s u k s h m a
or astral body, on the astral plane of s v a p n a, * dream-
ing* consciousness; its sleeping in the latter, again, is
its awakening in the k a ran a, ' causal * body, on the
corresponding plane of s u s h u p t i, * deep sleep ' con*
sciousness ; (and so on pseudo-infinitely, in a special
sense), and in the reverse order, vice versa, (also, pseudo-
infinitely, in that special sense).
But, again, the totality of 6 1 a t s, ' this-es ', can never
be really separated from the One indivisible Self ; nor an
tat, a 'this,' from an a ham, an ' I ', from its own
particular 4 I ', so to say, viz., the one with which it was
identified in the beginning of beginningless time ; any
more than it can be really unified and identified with
such. There is no sufficient reason why an etat should
be really separated especially remembering that it has
to be reunited with it as said before from any a ham
with which it has once, at any time, been in junction.
Once, therefore ever, is the requirement of the first
principles of logic, the first laws of thought : " A is
P,, CH. XIll] ALL EVERYWHERE, AS LATENT 345
A and Not not-A." The result of these acting and
counteracting necessities of reason is that we have the
periodic, definite, overt, find patent, severance and con-
nection of each a ham with one particular etat in any
one particular limited cj'cle of space and time ; and the
undefined, hidden, and latent connection of it constantly
with all other e t a t s, in the past, present and future,
(Compare the statements in The Secret Doctrine on the
subject of the auric egg, and in Vedanta on the subtle
atomic sheaths carried by a jiva in its passage from lower
to successively higher worlds. 1 )
In other words, the One Aham in its pseudo-infinite
pseudo-subdivisions is in unceasing and yet recur-
rent conjunction-disjunction, samyoga-viyoga,*
with all pseudo-infinite etats; each etat, or rather
<3ach conjunction and each disjunction of the pseudo-
infinite number of such, representing, nay, being, a special
experience, and the whole being one constant and change-
less experience ; so that we come back, as we shall always,
again and again, with fuller and fuller knowledge of the
content, to the fact that " all is everywhere and always ", 5
1 The expression stffctEtal, jiva-kosha, ' jiva-cocoon or capsule ,'
occurs in Bhagavata, IV, xxiii, 11. In one of the debates in
Shankara-()ig-vijaya t occurs the sentence, & 5Tfi|,
, fat *I^5% agfq$*h I * The jiva, departing, goes enveloped in
sukshma, subtle, elements.'
2
BAagavafa, U, ix, 35,
I Ibid.. II, i, 39.
346 ARE ORBS OF HEAVEN INANIMATE? [SC. OF
One more statement seems to be needed before we
pass on to other aspects of the jiva-atom. What is the
true significance of the words ' nature/ * inanimate
nature/ as used to mean lands and mountains, clouds,
rivers, and oceans, fire of volcanoes, light and heat of
the sun, substance of the stars, airs and gases of the
atmosphere, ether of the spatial regions ? These appear
to stand out in sharp contrast, as vast masses of inani-
mate matter, to the human and other jlvas deriving their
; fir***. up *&**& 2,
J Nrsimha-Uttara-Tapnii Up. ( H^flcfT f| ^?4^ ; Gauda-pada's
Karika
: f etc. --are the epithets.
descriptive of the Self* in terms of ' all ' , which are scattered all over the
Upanishats. ' That which is every-thing. every-where, every-when ; all.
al-ways, all-space, all-time , all-knowing ; all-experiencing ; all-ruling ;
all-doing, all-desiring, all-smelling, all-tasting, all-touching, all-seeing,
all-hearing ; all-named, all-formed, all-motioned ; all-giving ; all-taking;
all-pervading ; all-grasping ; all-beloved , all-loving ; all-handed, all-
footed, all-eyed, all-cared, all-mouthed, all-nosed ; all-seeing, all-
witnessing, all-supporting, all-soulcd ; all-desire-transcending ; same and
equal in, for, to, all ; devoid of all ; essence of all ; creator, preserver,
destroyer of all , etc. Such descriptions can apply and do apply to
Naught-Else-than * I '. the Supreme, the Universal.
P., CH. Kill] HAS EACH A SOUL? MONISM 347
sustenance from them ? How are these masses to 6e
explained ? Where is the Aham, ' I ', in them ? Or if it
is there, why so latent in so much tht larger portion of
Mula-prakrti ? The question seems at first sight to be
exclusively within the province of mere speculation ; but
a true Metaphysic should include the principles of all
physics and all sciences whatever ; for the ideal standard
thereof is that it is the system of universal principles
which underlie all the World- Process and co-ordinate
and synthesise all its aspects and departments, as the
architect's plan underlies the building and co-ordinates
the activities of all the workers on it. The explanation
of this question may, therefore, properly be sought for
in metaphysical as well as physical science. If found,
it will help greatly to enlarge and confirm our grasp
of the nature of Aham and Etat, and their pseudo-
infinite variety of extent in space, time, and motion, and
therefore their pseudo-infinite overlappings.
Physiological science, through leading scientists,
says : " Individuals of the first order are cells ; of the
second order are tissues, associations of individuals -of
the first order ; of the third order are organs, associations
of individuals of the second order ; of the fourth order are
persons, associations of various individuals of the third
order ; of the fifth order are communities, associations of
individuals of the fourth order." * There is no reason
why this chain should not be lengthened pseudo-infinitely.
It is very probable that physical science will some day
1 Max Verworn. General Physiology, p. 62.
348 INDIVIDUALITIES OF MANY GRADES [SC. OF
discover definitely that the vital connections between the
members of a community are of a nature exactly similar
to, if, perhaps, weaker in intensity than, those between
the organs in a person, the tissues in an organ, and the
cells in a tissue. And thus it will discover that the
solidarity of the human race, as made up of communi-
ties, is not a merely poetical metaphor or political
abstraction or religious ideal, but a physical and super-
physical fact ; and, still further, that the various king-
doms, human, animal, vegetable, mineral, etc., have a
common life as well as special lives, in endless continuity,
so that even ordinary pantheism is vindicable in a very
literal sense, as being one part, but not the whole, of the
body of truth which makes up metaphysic.
' Individuals ' in the preceding paragraph really
signifies selves, and the quotation shows how larger and
larger masses of ' animate nature ' are included within
larger and larger * selves '. We may now select some
other extracts which will show how large masses of ' in-
animate nature ' may be inspired by single * selves,' while
the preceding paragraph, by its explanation of the flux
and elasticity of individuality ' in animate nature, helps
to make clear the possibility of ' individuality ' in inani-
mate nature, and so helps to abolish the distinction
between animate nature and inanimate nature. Preyer
thought that " originally the whole molten mass of the
earth's body was a single giant organism : the powerful
movement that its substance possessed was its life." l
1 Ibid., p. 303.
p., CH. xni] 'EXTREME' ZEAL: TRUTHFUL 'MEAN' 349
Pfltiger opined that " living proteid is a huge
molecule undergoing constant, never-ending formation
and constant decomposition, and probably behaves
towards the usual chemical molecules as the sun be-
haves towards small meteors "V Of course there is
difference of opinion and discussion going on amongst
the holders and opponents of such views, but the result
of the discussion can only be that new details and fuller
significance will come to the surface, and the general
truth pervading and reconciling all opposing views will
be realised in a higher degree. Individual students of
science may now and then secretly believe or openly call
each other fanciful or unscientific, in the excusable heat
of the race after truth, and under the influence of the
zealous faith of each (which sometimes helps by putting
vigour and energy into the chase) that his own path is
shortest cut/ But truth lies in the net result of the
whole, and, from this standpoint, the mere fact is enough,
for the present, for our purposes, that such views are
entertained by scientific men, in whose sobriety, as a
collective body, the lay public implicitly believes. This
fact softens, and makes possible the assimilation of, the
1 Ibid., p. 307.
- Thus a recent writer on political science says : "It is difficult to
label the attitude I have adopted. It is Individualism if that only implies
the denial of the existence of any Social Soul or Higher Unity in the
form of a Super-person," (i.e., as we might say, of a sdtratma. an over-
soul or group-soul, a virSt-purusha, which others believe in); C. D. Burns.
Political Ideals. Preface, p. 5 (1915). The workings of the ' principle *
of the 'group-soul', 'net-soul', in animalcules, animal-herds (shoals,
schools, flights, coveys, packs, hives, termitaries), human-families (clans,
tribes, races, nations), should be observed and studied, to make the signi-
ficance of ' individuality ' clear.
350 INDIVIDUALS WITHIN INDIVIDUALS [SC. OF
view which otherwise would look exaggerated, weird, un-
sober, that the earth, the moon, the sun, and the stars,
might each be they are, by the deductions of the reason
and the testimony of Purdnas and other scriptural works
as much individual beings as the matter-of-fact citizens
of a civilised town of to-day ; and again, not only
individuals, but individuals within individuals, so that a
large number, or, strictly speaking, a pseudo-infinite
number, of distinct lives, i.e., lines of consciousness, are
being ministered to by apparently each ' this ', while at the
same time all the pseudo-infinite ' this-es ' are, vice versa,
ministering to the one life of the One Self (as also to the
life of each individual self or jlva, one directly and the
rest indirectly). 1
This will become clear when the student casts
entirely away from him the associations of time, space,
and motion, those arch-magicians, mystifiers, and illusion-
makers in this Maya's Playhouse of the World- Process.
He should consider the facts solely in their mutual pro-
portion and relation. Thus considered, millions and
billions of such heavenly bodies might as easily float in
the veins of Macrocosmic * Virat Purusha with thousand
heads, feet, hands," '' as blood-corpuscles, leucocytes,
phagocytes, bacilli, bacteria, microbes, virus-es, in the
veins of a single human being ; and they may very well
discharge similar functions also. Each of such has its
1 This is one way of interpreting the Sankhya doctrine of one Prakrji
being ' beheld ' by many porushas, and the Vedanfa view of One
Brahma and many-natnred yet pseudo-one Maya,
2 Purusha-Suk^a. See also Bhagavad-Glfa, xi.
P., CH. XIIlJ LIVING BONES, CONCHES, CARAPACES 351
own life, and also forms part of the life of another, which,
in turn, has its own special as also a subordinate life,
and so on in a chain which extends literally endlessly. 1
The apparently imanimate masses of material nature
may thus all l>e regarded as parts of some one or other
smaller or larger ' individual '. Their inanimateness is at
the most no greater than the inanimateness of a living be-
ing's teeth, nails, hair, epidermis, blood, bone, shell, each
of which may, nay, does, harbour and nourish multifarious
minute lives, while also itself connected on the descending
or ascending phase of metabolism with a larger lite. This
is but another illustratibn of the law that an e tat cannot
stay devoid of an a h a m ; if one a h a m, one line of con-
sciousness, deserts it, another or others take up its place
immediately. In daily experience we see this, in the
springing up of new lives in disintegrating organic forms
1 The phenomena of ' multiple personality ', ' dissociated states '
of which up to eight have been observed (see Dr. Morton Prince, The
Unconscious, Lee. II) are very useful in helping us to realise the Maya
of the feel of separate individuality ; and how this varies and fluctuates,
by means of memory, f%f| %cJ9%. We may think of an incident, and
even call up a vivid picture of it in mind, but feel unperturbed, like
a neutral spectator ; suddenly, there comes a wave, a surge, an over-
powering rush of memory ' the principal actor in the incident is
myself ' and all the appurtenant emotions follow at once. So too. a
chief means of consolation for past mistakes is the ' philosophical ' re-
flection ' It was not I, my present ' I '. which committed it ; but a long-
past ' I ', another I, someone else, as it were, or even an obsessing spirit,
that did it '. Memory at-taches ; reflection de-taches ; emotion attaches,
connects, binds, identifies ; intelligence detaches, analyses, discriminates,
separates ; (bandha and mok?ha).
The ideas put forward in Jung's Analytical Psychology, (trans, by
C E. Long, Dub: 1920) pp, 472-4, ' Summary ', supply useful com-
mentary on Vedanta views. Jung calls ' individuality ', persona, and
speaks, of ' collective Psyche ', which comes near to Mahat-Bud(Jhi.
Vishv-a|ina, Sutr~a|ma, etc.
352 MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM [SC. OF
that have served their purpose of sheath to a larger life
and so ' died '. What the Upamshat declares, ' This
world appears forth from the Unperishing as hair and
nails from the man," is probably declared in a similar
sense with reference to Virat-Purusha. 1
The result of all this, in the words of physical
science, is that, as Preyer said : 4< As the matter of
1 Mnndaka, i. 1. 7. Many Pnrana-s describe, in different aspects, the
correspondences ^between the limbs, members, parts, organs, of V i r a t-
Purusha, Mah a-Pnr us ha, Maha-Virat, Macro-Cosmos, and
those of the human p u r u s h a, k s h u cj r a-v i r a, t, micro-cosmos. The
two are also called Braiim-anda and p i n d - a n d a. fihaguvafa
describes them in grand words, in 11, i, and repeatedly, in later chapters.
The general Law of Correspondence, or Law of Analogy, is also en-
unciated in II viii. 8, and again, with a slight variation of language, in
XII. xi, 9. thus:
ffcf
I
3?fo flf fg^q:
As the organs, parts, of, and arrangements and proportions thereof,
of a single small-organism ; even such, those of the Vast-Organism.'.
' The seven tala-s (patala, etc ) are the Lord's nether limbs ; seven
lokas (bhilh, etc.) His upper parts ; sun and moon are His eyes ; tempests
and zephyrs, His hot and cool breaths : His upper hp is the blush of
Love, and the lower the Greed of that same Love , His breast is
pharma, and his back, A-dharma ; His flanks are Oceans ; rivers. His
arteries and veins ; Mountains, His mighty bones , forests are the
down upon His Body ; clouds His glorious many-colored hair ; His smil
and brilliant teeth are bewitching Maya. The Kaustubha- jewel that
He wears upon His breast is the all-illuminating Light of Self-
Knowledge , the glory thereof is the mark Shri-va^sa on His chest ;
Sankhya and Yoga are His ear-rings ; His all-whelming Discus Sudar-
shana is the Wheel of Cyclic Time. Vasudeva (Krshna), Sankarshana
(Balarama, elder brother) , Pratfyumna (son), Anirwjdha (grandson) are
chitt*.. abamkara, bucjdhi. and manas; also turiya.
p r a j fi a, taijasa, vishva (planes,, viz. , transcendent or fourth,
causal , subtle-astral , and physical) ' . And so on .
The student should read up references in the Index (Vol. VI of
The Secret Doctrine} against ' Analogy ' and * Correspondences ' .
P., CH. XIIl] COSMOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY 353
the universe is in eternal motion, so life, which
itself is only a complex process of motion, is as old as
On p. 70 of The Mahatma Letters, occurs the following
" Nothing in nature springs suddenly ; all being subjected
to the same law of gradual evolution. Realise but once the
process of the tnaha cycle, of one sphere, and you have
realised them all. One man is born like another man, one
race evolves, develops, and declines like another and all other
races. Nature follows the same groove from the creation
of a universe down to that of a mosquito. In studying esoteric
cosmogony, keep a spiritual eye upon the physiological process
of human birth; proceed from cause to effect, establishing
analogies. Cosmology is the physiology of the universe
spiritualised, for there is but one law If .
" That one law " in enshrined in Aum.
For some light on this, and several obscure verses tn Manu, i, see The
Secret Doctrine, V. 422-6. In this connection may also be considered
the mystical kabbalistic and theosophical views and doctrines re* the Di-
vine Man, a literal solar ' Golden God-Man ', the Ruling Chief, king,
president of the hierarchy qf deVa-s, hosts of Dhyan Chohans (in Buddh
ism). He (or She, strictly speaking sexless or both-sexed) is referred to, in
Ufianishats. as f^-W,^r. r %fl:^
etc.. i.e.. ' Golden- Wombed, -colored. '-haired, -moustached, -bearded, -
-formed, -seeded, -armed, -toothed .-crested (-corona-ed,-c rowned,. Skt 9
k i r a p a, ray, corona)/ A well known Skt. verse, part of a grand hymn
to ' our ' Lord the Sun, says,
'Narayana, seated on the golden lotus-throne in the middle of the
Sun-globe, adorned with ornaments, and holding the sweet-sounding.
cqnch and light-shedding discus, should be ever meditated on as seated
in one's own heart '. All jivas, high and low, of the solar system, would
be as cells, tissues, organs, in His being ; and would be issuing out of
and going back into that corporate being. (The analogy of the peculiar
relationship between the queen-bee and the whole hive, and the queen -
ant and the whole termitariiim, applies). Such a solar God-Man
23
354 AIRY NETWORK OF FACTS AND LAWS [SC. OF
matter." ' The student of metaphysic has to read
4 pseudo-eternal ' or * sempiternal ' in place of * eternal/
and ' conscious motion ' in place of ' motion '.
We have floated away very far on the stream of the
discussion of animate and inanimate ; but we have seen
again, in the course thereof, what was stated before, how
law begets law and fact, and these more laws and facts,
with prolific, indeed endless, multiplicity ; and we are
now in a position to understand how, if the necessary
means for knowledge of concrete details, now sup-
posed to be known only to occult physical and super-
physical science, were available, every concrete object,
including Krug's quill, before referred to, (pp. 73, 179)
could be deduced with even complete minuteness of steps.
Thus we may realise how the whole of the solid-seeming
would be only a particular Individual, above, below, and side by side
with other Individuals, smaller, larger, or of equal degree, sub-ordinate,
super-ordinate or co-ordinate, in smaller and larger systems within
systems without end.
It should be kept in mind, here, that ' personality ' or ' individual-
ity ', 4 1 am I, something separate from all other I's 'this also is only
a feeling, a mood of consciousness or v r 1 1 i, psychosis, in the Universal
Consciousness, the All-Psyche. It too comes and goes. The desire for
* personal ' immortality is intense, at one time ; at another, it disappears;
then supervenes, instead, the wish to merge into, and become one with,
and inseparable and indistinguishable from, the All, the Whole. The
former is the stage of acute aha m-\ a and m a m a-t a, I -ness and mine-
ness ; the latter of n a - a h a m and n a - m a m a, ' not (any separate) I and
not (any exclusive) mine*. See The Science of the Self, re * will-to-
ll ve ' and ' will-to-die '.
The streams of b h a k t i-devotion flowing upwards or inwards ; the
streams of (Jay a-compassion flowing downwards or outwards these
constitute the circulation of the Spiritual Blood of the Divine Man.
Whichever department of Nature, whichever aspect of Life, we
turn our eyes to, will supply abondant illustrations of this law and fact of
smaller within larger individualities, species within genera, ad infinitum.
1 Max Yerworn. General Physiology, p. 309.
P. f CH. XIIl] COBWEBS SPUN OUT AND ROLLED IN 355
of this world is hung on to, or indeed is entirely made up
of, the airiest of cobwebs of laws and principles (that are
always getting metamorphosed into facts), which the silk-
worm of the Pratyag-atma spins into an endless cocoon
out of and around itself ; and which disappears at once,
together with the silkworm, replaced by the gorgeous and
free-feeling and free-flying moth-butterfly ; as soon as it
realises and undergoes the perishing, the death, the
nothingness, of both ; as soon as the individualised
Pratyag-atma understands the endless interplay of mutual
termination and determination between Self and Not-
Self, and so becomes mukta, * liberated '.
The Upanishat-verse just referred to has, thus,
another and deeper metaphysical significance, besides
the literal one before mentioned : * As the spider casteth
forth its web and rolls it up again, as the herbs rise up
from out of the earth, as hair and down grow from the
life and being of the man, so doth this universe appear
from and within the Unperishing and Unchanging.' l
1 Mundaka Upanishaf. i 1.7. MUD da. in Skt. means the head,
the skull. Why has the U pants ha { been so named ? Apparently because
it was usually ' taught only to those who had undergone the discipline of
the head '. fiJKtal ftfol[ %* ^ftl (ibid., in. 2.10) ; i.e., meditation on
the light or sound within the head, whereby those parts of the brain were
vivified or awakened, which can apprehend and ,' mirror ' metaphysicat
truths ; (see Annie Besant's A Study in Consciousness r opening up of
spirillae of brain-cells ; and pevi Bhagavafa XI, viii and ix. A mystical
verse says.
: *
' The imperishable r. c h & - s (nature-secrets) are in the high heaven
(vySma, the skull, the head) ; all the gods (vishv6-<J vas, nature-
forces) dwell there. He who does not know tfcis wha| use uan he make
356 STAR-GALAXIES LIKE FOAM-BUBBLES [SC. OF
Of r. c h a - s ? They only who know this sit on high '. Nerve-centres of
all sensor, motor, and other organs and glands are all in the brain.
As to the coimtlessness of suns and stars and systems, we have this
statement :
fripad- Vibhuti~Maha-N&rayana-Upanishat.
* On all sides of this (our) globe or system, are blazing countless
billions of similar ones. The rajas-pradhana (predominantly
rajasa) B rah mas of some have four faces (elements), some five, six,
seven, eight, up to thousands (of facets) ; all are a m s h a - s, portions,
of Narayana (n a r a n a m ayanam, ' house ' , ' store-house ' , ' reser-
voir ' of nara-s, jiva-s). In each there is also a sa(tva-pra~
<J h a n a Vishnu, and a {amas-pradhana Mahgshvara, to preserve
and to destroy. They all wander about in infinite space, like shoals
of fishes, or masses of bubbles in foam/ See also World-War and
its Only Cure, pp. 62-65 and 411-413.
Another example from biological science may be adduced : " Investi-
gations by Mr. E. Marais, a South African scientist, point to the exist*
ence of a communal mind, in some of the lower orders of life, actuated
by definite purpose, and functioning independently (? not wholly) of the
matter with which it is connected. Experiments prove that white ants
are controlled not only by their own individual mentality, but by a com-
munal or group-mind as well, without an organic connection or outward
touch. If a part of the nest is entirely isolated by a sheet of galvanised
iron, under ordinary circumstances, the work will go on as usual. But
if the queen is removed from the main body on one side of the iron,
-within three minutes, the ants on the other side, though completely
isolated, will stop all work, and a complete cessation of their normal
functions ensues. Normally, if the rest is disturbed, they will resent
intrusion, and stoutly defend themselves, while the eggs will be carried
into a place of safety. But on removal of the queen from one side of the
division, the ants on the other side will no longer bite, or concern them-
selves in any way with the eggs, and are completely demoralised. (Thus)
We begin to understand that soul may exist (? comparatively) independ-
ently of the (? any given) organism. The queen is nowise (no way) the
source of the communal mind ; she is merely the physical medium
through which its influence passes, and by which it is centralised.
directed, and made effective:" Theosophist, March, 1923. Maurice
Maeterlinck's book, The Life of the White Ant, gathers together a lot
of very interesting information, of much value for psychology and philo-
sophy. See also the description of Myxomycetes. in H. G. Wells'
Science of Life. pp. 301-304 (edn. of 1938).
P M CH. XIIl] SUPPORT FROM PHYSICAL SCIENCE 357
NOTE. It is necessary to make distinction, to a certain
extents, for the practical purposes of the daily life of the
body, between atom and cell, animate and inanimate, organic
and inorganic, species and species, kingdom and kingdom
(mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and others), unicellular
and multicellular, individual and individual, soul and vehicle
(*.., instrument, means, of irn-pression and ex-pression, of
sensation and action), psyche and physique, body and mind,
Spirit and Matter. But it is impossible to make the distinc-
tion radically, for the metaphysical purposes of the eternal
life of the mind (soul, Self). That life includes all past, pre-
sent, and future, and the mind ranges over it all, at will, in
any order it pleases, to and fro, without limitations of time-
space-motion.
The above chapter attempts to set for the such ideas in
terms of a few main triads and their sub-divisions. The
plain reason is that distinction and even separateness are
inseparable from the changeful and limited ; while in the
Changeless and Unlimited, none such are possible ; since all
change and all limits are within that Changeless One Self.
Readers who would like to have further support of physi-
cal science for the fact that individuals, species, kingdoms
etc., merge into each other, may usefully read H. G. Wells*
The Science of Life, (written jointly with his son Prof. G. P.
Wells and Prof. Julian Huxley ; revised edition, 1938), and
Arthur Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea, and
Eduard von Hartmann's The Philosophy of the Unconscious^
(both published in the English and Foreign Philosophical Libr-
ary Series) ; or other later works describing evolution of the
several kingdoms. The books named are exceedingly interest-
ing and very informing because of the abundant examples
they give from plant and animal life. One or two may be
quoted.
14 For most of its life a slime-mould, Myxomycetes l is a
naked slimy mass of protoplasm like a gigantic amoeba . . .
Its motion is so slow as to be barely perceptible ; nevertheless,
it creeps with an appearance of appetite and purpose . . . The
final large plasmode is in reality a union of hundreds of dancing
swarm-spores that have completely merged their individuality
358 SLIME-FUNGUS AND POLYPS [SC. OF
into one shapeless gelatinous sheet. Imagine that whenever
two people meet each other in the street, they run together
into one blob, as drops of water run together, so that ulti-
mately the whole population of a town is rolled up into a
gigantic mass of living substance that creeps about like a
single creature ; that is the sort of thing that happens as a
matter of course in the life-history of a slime-fungus : The
Science of Life, pp. 301-304.
" We see that all the marks which have been set up on
different sides as decisive " (of distinction between vegetable
and animal) " do not hold, such as partial or total locomotion,
spontaneous movement, morphological and chemical differ-
ences, mouth and stomach . . . Plant and animal have some*
thing distinct, somewhat in common. . . . and we may fairly
well collect the total of common characters, if in both king-
doms we descend down the scale of organisation, until we
come to those structures where the differences disappear, and
essentially only the common element remains ... In this
common element sensation and consciousness is still included ;
the lowest vegetable organisms possess sensation and con-
sciousness ; . . . we " (are therefore) " warranted in ascribing
to the higher plants also, a similar, but higher, measure of
sensation and consciousness : " The Philosophy of the Un-
conscious, pp. 145-146.
"In the Mediterranean there is a rich family of splendid
swimming-polyps. A young polyp is developed from an egg.
It begins life freely floating in the sea. At its upper end it
forms a bubble, in which the air is set free which supports it ;
at its lower and there are formed . . . feelers and prehensile
threads ... On its stem, which is continually elongating,
there is formed a filtering tube. From this stem arise bud-
like shoots. Some of them form swimming-bells, which
propel themselves, and consequently the whole mass. The
others are metamorphosed into fresh polyps, which possess
mouth and stomach, and not merely collect, but also digest
food for the whole, to deliver it finally into the trunk-tube.
Finally, yet other buds attain a nettle-like aspect, and provide
for propagation; they bring forth ova, from which again
proceed freely-floating polyps. Special polyps with long
P., CH. XIIl] POLYMORPHISM 359
sensitive tactile threads represent the sense organs or the
intelligence of the state. What is here individual ? . . .
Whoever holds fast to the ' either-or ', such an example must
reduce to desperation ; but we see in the several members,
individuals partly of polyp-form, partly medusoid, and, in the
whole, an individual of higher order which includes in itself
all these individuals. Even in the bee- and ant-hive there is
nothing wanting to complete the view of the whole as an
individual of higher order but spatial unity, i.e., the continuity
of the form ; here this likewise is present, and therefore the
individual is indisputable. This widespread phenomenon in
the animal and vegetable kingdom of a varied physiological
development of morphologically originally similarly construct-
ed individuals of the same species is termed Polymorphism " :
Op. cit., 196-198.
Such instances make possible a new and literal (not only
metaphorical) interpretation of the VJda, and Gl{a verses
which describe ' p u r u s h a ' (jiva, self, ' person ') as ' thou-
sand-headed, thousand-eyed, thousand-footed, thousand- handed,
thousand-stomached '.
As to plants possessing sensation and consciousness,
ancient and modern testimony has been quoted on pp. 335-336
above. Fuller text is given below : ' Their color changes and
flower and fruit shrivel and even fall off, at touch of great
heat ; therefore plants have the sense of touch. Roar of
wind and crash of thunder also cause flower and fruit to fall ;
therefore plants hear. Creepers move about in many directions
and twine themselves round trees ; therefore they see. Frag-
rant incense of various kinds promotes their healthy growth ;
foul smoke and acrid smells make them diseased or even kill
them ; therefore plants smell. They drink up water by their
roots, and thrive if it is wholesome ; or become diseased or
even die if it is otherwise ; therefore plants have the sense of
taste. As a man, (by will) may suck up liquid through a
pipe from below upwards, so do plants ; (therefore they have
will). Because they feel pleasure and pain, because their parts,
cut off, grow again, therefore, clearly, plants have j l v a-life.
A-c haitanyam na v i d y a t , there exists nothing which
is devoid of the principle of consciousness : ' Mbh., Shanti-
parva, ch. 182, Kumbakonam edn. ; or 184 in the older
360 VEGETABLES HAVE CONSCIOUSNESS [SC. OF
Bombay edn.). Arguments very similar to these will be
found in Von Hartmann's book, to prove that animalcules
have the sense of sight, hearing, touch, etc. ; and also
memory. And once memory is admitted, all the rest of
intelligence, even the power of introspection, ( of course in
germ ) has to be admitted also. It stands to reason, that
only that can evolve and develope into man and higher, which
is already present in germ and seed in the primal cells of
vegetable and mineral life.
CHAPTER XIV
JIVA-ATOMS OBJECTIVELY, i.e., ATOMS
AFTER the above general treatment of the Jiva-atom we
may now take the two aspects of it separately and in a
little more detail. Of these two we may dispose of the
4 particular ', the atom-aspect, first, and leave for later
treatment the other aspect of the * individual/ the jlva,
discussion of which is the main purpose of the rest of this
work ; reference to only the material side of life being made
as necessary to explain and illustrate the spiritual side.
First, attributes common to jlva and atom, viz., size, 1
life, and vibration, may be further particularised with
respect to the atom. 2
1 The significance of ' size ' in reference to jiva is explained at
outset of next chapter.
Compare 5f!fcHn?-*ft*TT:, Yoga-sKtra, ii. 13, i.e., 'species or
type (by birth), life-period (total life-time), and experience (as a whole, of
pains and pleasures in varied settings). Also 3?3T-3pM>P3Sfc*Tr, as des-
criptive of *{^ct. of Bh&gavaja. Ill, v. 28 ; Shricjhara's Tika explains
these as (a) c h id-am s ha, principle of consciousness (broadly corres-
ponding to bhoga of the Yoga-Sutra), (b) of triple attributes (j a |i).
(c) of kshobhaka, kalayfta, 'stirring', 'disturbing', 'agitating 1 ,
* moving ', ' instigating ' time (a' y ).
P., CH. XIV] THE ONE NON-ARBITRARY FORM 361
Size, in this reference, may be said to break up into
the triplet of ' bulk or volume,' 4 shape or form,' and
4 measure, magnitude, or dimension/ which includes both
the others. These again may be looked at as ' large,
small, average, 1 ' long, round, ovoid/ ' linear, superficial,
cubical/ etc.!
A hypothesis may be advanced here as to form.
It has been said above that, under stress of the
necessity embodied in the logion, e tats, this-es, appear
in pseudo-infinite number as constituent points of mani-
fold Mula-prakrti. It has also been said that, by that
same necessity, they are never actually points without
magnitude, but always points with magnitude, with de-
finite volume, form, and measure, and are therefore
atoms. Atoms would be without these if Etat were
not limited. But Etat is limited, consequently they
must have these. And if they must have these, or, rather,
as is enough to say, form (for all three are only different
ways of looking at the same thing, measure being limita-
tion pure and simple, while form is limitation from out-
side, and volume is limitation from within), the sphere
ought, apparently, to be their primal form, because it is
1 The view, here suggested, is that ' a-toms ' (non-divisible) have a
definite size ; that the size varies for different systems or planes : that the
subtler interpenetrate the denser, in an indefinite series. With reference
to the new ideas that have come into western physical science, regarding
the make-up of atoms, by electrons, neutrons, plutrons, positrons, etc.,
triplets of words, in terms of these, may be coined, correspond-
ing with those in the text. The shapes produced by the whirling of
electrons have been named ' harmonograms ', But it is quite possible
that all these new views and terms may change or even disappear
altogether. The simpler ones, of the text above, have lasted long, and
seem likely to last longer. Primitive animalcules have outlasted the
saurians. '
362 FIGURE-SYMBOLOGY [SC. OP
the only universally non-arbitrary form. A form which
embodies the essence of * pointness J -*-that it is the
same, fiowever looked at can only be a sphere,
which presents the same appearance or feel from
whatever side it is seen or felt. Of course the law
of non -arbitrariness requires and necessitates the exist-
ence of all possible pseudo-infinite kinds of forms and
figures in the World -Process, but the difference between
the non-arbitrariness of the sphere on the one hand, and
that of ' all possible figures ' on the other, is the difference
(if such an expression may be used without fear of mis-
understanding) between Pratyag-atma on the one hand,
and the pseudo-infinite contents of Its consciousness, the
varieties of Not-Self, on the other. Pratyag-atma is
everywhere and always, but the contents of Its consci-
ousness, made up of interminable and intermixing not-
selves, are in definite times, spaces, and motions ; so the
sphere (when we abolish the periphery of limitation) may
be said to have its centre potentially everywhere and
always, while its contents all possible figures m?ide up
of the numberless interlacing radii, interlacing because
the centre is everywhere, each corresponding to a not-self
are only in definite times, spaces, and motions.
Because of this fact, most figure-symbology represents
the self-centred Pratyag-atma as the 'point;' differentiated
Matter Spirit Matter, as the 'diameter-line,' or the
cross of two diameters, or two interlaced ' triangles' ; and
the whole, the Absolute, as the ' circle '. The line,
or cross of two lines, or double triangle, and the circle*
P., CH. XIV] POINT-SPHERE, PRIMAL ROOT-FORM 363
are used to meet exigencies of script, in place of
what strictly ought to be the star of three lines cros-
sing at right angles at their middle, and the sphere,
respectively. The * point ' should stand for Pratyag-atma ;
countless ' radii * for Mula-prakrti ; and the ' sphere ' for
Param-atma, including both, and being the ' Same ', al-
ways, ever, everywhere, however looked at ( the circle or
disc varies, f.i., the moon ) ; but solids cannot be 'written*
on paper easily. The correspondence of the point and the
line to Self and Not-Self respectively should be noted, and
may prove of use hereafter. It may seem at first sight
that there is no gftch opposition between point and line as
there is between Self and Not-Self, inasmuch as a line
is only a production, is prolongation, of a point. But
the opposition is there. From all that has gone before,
it will be clear that Not-Self is nothing independent of
Self, nothing else that a production and a lengthening, a
limitation and definition, of Self, that is to say, a going
of the immovable Self out of Itself into a denial, a
negation, of Itself. Even so, lines are the first denial of
the non-magnitude of the point ; and out of such denial,
all the endless multiplicity of figures grows in the
Metaphysic of Negation, i.e., Mathematics, as all the
endless multitude of hot-selves grows out of the denial of
Self in the complete Metaphysic. In describing these
imaginary lines, by rushing to and fro, the point
without magnitude may be said to be seeking to define
itself, to give itself a magnitude, even as Self appears
to define itself by entering into, by imposing upon itself,
364 PERVADING TRIPLICITY [SC. OF
imagined not-selves, and saying, ' I am this,' * I am this '.
Points in juxtaposition make a line ; but if they have no
magnitude, how can they juxtapose !
Corresponding to this triple sub-division of * size ',
we may note a triple subdivision under ' duration ' also.
The words in this reference have not such a recognis-
ed standing as those connected with size. But we
may distinguish ' period,' corresponding to form as
limited from without ; ' filling ' to volume, as limited from
within ; and ' rate,' as limitation proper, corresponding to
measure. Each of these again manifests as ' long, short,
average,' ' well-filled, ill-filled, occupied*, (or * crowded,
scattered, leisurely arranged '), ' fast, slow, even,' etc.
We may similarly distinguish under vibration
(tentatively, as in the case of duration) the three aspects
of * extent, rate, and degree, 9 and subdivide each of these
three again into ' great, little, mean,' * high, low, even,'
and * intense, sluggish, equable,' etc.
In the above-mentioned arrangements of triplets we
see illustrated the fact that all things of the World -
Process fall into groups of three in accordance with the
Primal Trinity that underlies and is the whole of the
universe. 1 And these groupings are not mechanical or
1 The Kashmir school of ' Shaiva f philosophy, some works of which
have been published, recently, is also known as that of the Philosophy of
the Triad. fST3> 3$*TO The main ideas of the present work appear to
be very much in accord with that Philosophy. The importance of triads
is amply recognised in familiar Samskrt literature also ; thus
fir* star:, ft-*r \*t:, frsr firar, few
P M CH. XIV] REFLECTION WITHIN REFLECTION 365
empirical but organic. It may appear to the cursory
observer that there is no * why f apparent in them. But
the * why ' is there, and in a very simple way too. Each
member of a trinity reflects in itself each of the three
and so produces three trinities ? and this process is a
pseudo-infinite one ; hence the whole content of the
World-Process is only a pseudo-infinite number of groups
of such triads. All these, it must be remembered, are
simultaneous from the standpoint of the Absolute, and do
not grow one out of another in time. If we would know
why there is such a thing as this reflection, we should
reconsider the arguments in the preceding chapters,
whereby the necessity of both changelessness and change,
of timelessness and time, spacelessness and space,
simultaneity and succession, unity and diversity,
reality of non-separateness and false appearance of
separateness and distinguishability, are established. The
ft: f
r9f:
1 Three kinds of gifts, sacrifices, worlds or planes, gods, sciences,
paths (after death); past, present, future ; dharma-artha-k&ma;
prSpa-apana-ud ana ; three g upas; three ultimates or elements.
fires; Vtdas states of consciousness all these are indicated by the
three-lettered AUM,'
366 SELF-MAINTENANCE [SC. OF
three are one, and yet three ; and the result of this
apparent antinomy is that they reflect each other ; each
carries the image of the others in its very heart, to prove
its oneness with it ; and all do this endlessly.
To show that these endless multiplications, seem-
ingly so tangible in their multitude, are, in reality,
on close scrutiny, found to be very unsubstantial, we
may consider a little more fully what has been paren-
thetically hinted above, (on p. 358), viz., that volume
and form mean the same thing. Form is nothing else
than a negation of continuity, a denial, a limitation, a
cutting short of continued existence on all sides. Volume
means evidently the same thing looked at from within ;
it is an inability to extend further. Hence only are form
and volume liable to change. If they were anything real,
actual, having being, then how could they change, i.e.,
pass from being into nothing and from nothing into
being ? ' There is no being to that which really is not,
nor non-being to that which truly is.' ' But such change
is apparent every second, every millionth of a second, of
our lives. The solution lies in the fact that, in all change,
what really changes is only mere form (and it will appear
on analysis that all other aspects or qualities of the atom
are also on the same level with form), which is simply
negation looked at as above ; and that what remains
behind is the pseudo-thing-in-itself, the * substance *
which is * indestructible,' the essence of which we regard
as ' resistance '. Resistance is nothing else than the
' 6I(A f ii, 16. \ ,
p., CH.XIV] NO REAL CHANGE: ENERGY CONSTANT 367
power of attraction and repulsion embodied in a not-self,
an etat, as exclusiveness, separateness, separate self-
maintenance. It is the reflection of the affirmative-
negative, attractive-repulsive, Energy of Ichchha-Desire
in the Self. This ' resistance,' ' self-maintenance,' at ma-
d h arana, like desire (of which indeed it is but another
name, in the objective language belonging to the atom,
as distinguishable from the subjective language belonging
to the jlva), 1 has no overt form of its own, and therefore,
in a strict and abstract sense, never changes, remaining
ever the same in totality. It is the Energy which physical
science recognises as remaining constant in the universe.
Its overt form is the multitude of changing forms and
actions. And yet again, lest it should be said that even
form is after all not pure and utter negation, but has an
4 appearance ' at least, has an e#-is-tence, outer-being,
and so should not be -capable of destruction, the law
makes provision for this also, and ordains that no form,
however ephemeral, shall be destroyed beyond recall.
As it has only pseudo-being, so it shall not have fixed-
ness, but it shall have unending possibility, and therefore
actuality, of recall and repetition. The remarks that
apply to ' forms ' apply also- to * actions,' ' motions/
c movements,' which constitute the essence of change.
We see thus that these reflections add nothing to
the primal trinity, but are included in it. Their details
1 In this consideration is to be found the reason why cT*T:,
tf?:, ?^r, r^fa:, S^srftR:, awrfa:,
etc., are allied terms, more or less interchangeable.
368 TRIPLE ASPECTS OF JIVA-ATOM [SC. OF
constitute all the universe, and may not be comprehended
by any single individual mind and in any single
particular book, however large they may be. As the
extent of these is, such will be the amount of detail
comprehended. But the main principles may be grasped ;
and new details as they are brought forward by empirical
experience, may be classified and put away, as a matter
of convenience, in accordance with those main principles.
We may conclude this line of observations by
noticing another series of triplets, very important in itself,
and also illustrative in a high degree of the principle of
reflections and re-reflections.
The attributes, size, life, and vibration, common to
both aspects or halves of the jiva-atom, all considered
with special reference to the primal, twofold (or threefold)
motion of alternation involved in Negation, which con-
stitutes the swing of the World- Process, yield us these
parallel triplets, viz. :
(1) ' increase, decrease, and equality ' in respect of
matter ; and ' liberality, narrowness, and tolerance ' in
that of spirit ;
(2) * growth, decay, and continuance * in respect of
body ; and ' pursuit, renunciation, and indifference or
equanimity,' in that of soul ;
(3) * expansion, contraction, and rhythm ' in respect
of the sheath ; and ' pleasure, pain, and peace,' in that
of the jiva.
We may also note that, in special relation to Mula-
prakrti, the triplet of size, etc., takes on the form of
P., CH. XIV] NEW MEANINGS OF OLD WORDS 369
' quantity, quality, and mode '. Its transformation with
reference to Pratyag-atma also may be described by the
same three terms in the absence of other well-recognised
ones, though the difference of connotation in the two
cases is great ; for they cover the different triplets men-
tioned by Kant under the heads of quantity, etc., in
connection with the ' categories ' and with ' logical
judgments ' respectively.
We may now proceed, in the second place, to
specify the attributes that appear in the atom with
reference to the primary attributes of Mula-prakrti.
These are :
(a) Dravya, substance, or dravya-tva, substantiality,
mass, power of self-maintenance, that which constitutes
it a something having a separate existence ; that which
makes it ' capable of serving as the substratum of move-
ment,' ' capable of being moved ' ; the immediate mani-
festation of this substance, this ' compacted energy \
being movement ;
(6) Guna, all ' qualities ' whatsoever, (not the ' three
attributes of Mula-prakrti) ; and
(c) Karma, activity, vibration, incessant movement. 1
g<n, 3*$ \ 5fag, or $refr, after, *W, ' that
which can be ' driven ' about, moved from place to place. Skt. g r u
means ' to run, to <*n-ve
These three terms belong specially to the Vaisheshika-system of
Indian philosophy, which deals with this part of metaphysic predomin-
antly ; but as with most of the other Samskr.t words used in this work,
so with these, though they themselves are more or less current, yet the
connotations that have been put into them here would often not be quite
recognised, in some cases would perhaps be repudiated, by the authors of
370 PRIMAL TRIPLETS [SC. OF
This triplet of dravya-guga-karma, substance-quality-
movement, is, as already indicated, a reflection and
reproduction of more primal triplets. The mergence of
Pratyag-atma and Mula-prakrti, producing the jlva-atom,
also reproduces therein their two triplets of attvibutes in
this most familiar and therefore most important form.
Sattva-rajas-tamas become respectively transformed into
guna-karma-dravya ; and sat-chit-anancja jespectively
into kriya-jfiana-ichchha ; which again correspond to
karma-guna-dravya respectively. Jnana, ichchha, and
kriya will be treated of in the next section, in Connection
with the jlva-portion of the jiva-atom. 1
(i) Guna, then, is that in the atom which corres-
ponds to the elements of chit or cognition, an$ sattva or
cognisability, in Pratyag-atma and Mula-praktti respec-
tively. It is the qualities of matter which falone we
know and can know, and never the thing-in-itself, as that
expression is used by western psychologists and philoso-
phers; for that thing-in-itself, so far as it hasja being at
all, a pseudo-being, as substance, (which holds together
or possesses the qualities), is the object of desire and not
most of the current Samskr,t works in which they are to be met with.
The present writer believes, however, that these, are the real original
connotations, and that they were lost with the growth of the spirit of
separateness and selfishness in the people, and the consequent gradual
loss of the deeper Metaphysic which unified, and organised the various
systems of philosophy as different chapters t>f a" single work ; clues to
which Metaphysic, it is endeavoured to rediscover in these few pages,
all too poor and fragmentary as they are. See Pranava-vada.
1 Hints and more or less veiled statements, regarding these corres-
pondences, are scattered over Dtvl-Bhtlgavata, especially in Pts. III.
vi ix, VII. xxxiii., and IX, 1, and are also to be found in Kapila-
Ctt& and works on Tantra-Shas^ra.
P,, CH, XIV] CORRESPONDENCES 371
of knowledge ; * as its movements are the object of, i.e.,
can be changed by, action. Guna may be subdivided
again into three classes : (a) mukhya, chief, vyavar^aka
or vish^shaka, distinguishing or differentiating, svabhavika
or prakrtika, natural, asadharana, uncommon or special
or essential i.e., proper-ties, characteristics, differentia,
propria, e.g., special sensuous properties, sound, touch,
colour, taste, or smell, etc., which would from part of
de-fini-tions ; (b) gauna, secondary, akasmika, accidental,
sadharana or samanya, common, or non-essential (or
non-demarcating) i.e., qualities, which would form part
of de-scrip-tions ; and (c) dharma (active), functions,
lakshana, attributes, signs, marks, which would generally
include both ; for, in reality, distinction between essential
and accidental rests only on greater or less persistence in
space, time, and motion. 8 We might perceive again in
this triplet a general correspondence to Self, Not-Self,
and Negation, and also to cognition, desire, and action,
respectively.
It may be observed that demarcating and non-
demarcating qualities are only relatively such. A quality
which is non-distinguishing as between individuals of the
1 A ' thing ' is known only* by its qualities ; to speak of a
4 thing-in-itself * apart from qualities and seek to know it as
such, is self-contradiction and self-stultification. The One
and Only Thing-in-It-Self that knows (or better, is aware of)
It-Self, apart from (indeed, by repudiation of) all qualities, is
the Supreme Self, Patem-Atmd.
wwrtte,
372 SOUND (etC.)-CONTINUA [SC. OF
same species, is distinguishing as between that species
and other species. This fact only illustrates further, the
fluidity which is continual in the higher regions of the
subtle mental plane.
With reference to (a), we may note that, in the
human race, only five senses are working at the present
time ; and hence we have the five well-known sense-
properties, or sens-able properties, tan-matras, 1 under the
sub-head of * essential '. Varieties of each of these again
are many, and if we had the necessary information as to
details, we should be able to throw these into triplets,
corresponding with and reflecting each other endlessly.
r t The word may be grammatically construed to mean, both,
'that only', (a near approach to ' thing- in-or-by-itseif ' !) and 'the
measure of that ' (i.e., that which measures, de-limits, de-fines an object).
There is much obscurity as to the exact meaning of the word, in the
current works of Sankhya-Yoga, to which it belongs principally as a
technical term. But the way in which it is used in Bhagavata. Ill, v and
xxvi, makes it certain that it means the essential property which belongs to,
and distinguishes, each of the ' five elements ', maha-bhutas or ta^tva-s.
Thus, shab4a-matram, ' sound only ', ' pure sound ', ' sound-continuum ',
is the property of akasha-tattva (Pether) ; sparsha-matram, ' tact only ',
' tact continuum '. of vayu-air (invisible ' gas ') ; rupa-matram, 'color-
form only ', ' light-continuum ', of tejas-fire (visible luminous ' gas'); rasa-
ma|ram, ' taste only ', ' taste-continuum ', of jala- water (' liquid ') , and
gandha-matram, 'odour only', ' smell-continuum ', of prthvi-earth (solid).
' Shut ' the ' ear ', ' skin ', ' eye ' ' tongue ' ' nose ', and you will feel
some continuous sound, tact, light, taste, scent ; these are the sense-
continua, all-pervasive, generic ; .particular sensations of sounds, tacts,
etc., are only particular modifications of these; as the words that are
being wntten are particularisations of the ink-in-general which fills the
ink-bottle or the fountain-pen's ink-holder. Note that t a t - 1 v a means
that-ness.
One more observation is needed. There is obscurity and confusion in
the current books (even in Bh&gavaja itself, in this very ch. III. xxvi.)
as to the word which stands for the substrate of sound and that which
means space. Synonyms for the letter are often used for the former. But
there is reason to think that a k & s h a h (masculine) means the element
(? ether) which, as substratum, has the property of sound; while
a k a s h a m (neuter) means Space.
P., CH, XIV] SENS-ABLE QUALITIES 373
Thus, under sound, we have : soft (in tone or timbre), or
harsh, low (in pitch) and grave, or high (-pitched) and
acute, loud, rounded, shrill, sonorous, deep, light, heavy,
even, piercing, rolling, crackling, bursting, tearing,
thunderous, whistling, screaming, roaring, rushing, dash-
ing, moaning, groaning, rasping, grinding, etc., sounds,
Tacts are smooth, rough, even, silky, flowery, velvety,
hard, soft, firm, cool, warm, damp, dry, clammy, moist,
etc. Colours are white, black, red, yellow, blue, brown,
golden, violet, orange, grey, green, purple, etc., with their
endless shades and combinations. Tastes (' gusts ',
relishes) are sweet, salt, acid, astringent, hot, bitter, acrid,
pungent, putrid, etc. Smells or scents are fragrant,
malodorous, stimulating, depressing, sulphurous, stinking,
skunk-y, civet-like musky, saffron, sandal, khas, rose, jas-
mine, violet, pSrijata, malati, sugandha-raja (the ' king of
scents,' also called rajani-gandha the ' night-scent,)'
lemon, lily, lotus, blooms of myrtle or henna, neem or
tamarisk, mango, etc. 1 ' Flavors ' and ' savors ' are
mixed tastes and smells which affect palate and nostril
simultaneously. Sub-varieties of sensations must neces-
sarily be countless in accordance with the countlessness
of the objects of the senses; but humanity possesses
definite names only for those that it uses and experiences
most frequently.
1 Mahd-bharata, Shanti-parva, ch. 182, enumerates nine kinds
of smells, six of tastes, twelve kinds of forms and colours, twelve kinds of
tacts, and seven kinds of sounds. Anugifd, ch. 35, repeats these, with
slight variations : it gives ten kinds of smells and eleven of sounds.
Popularly, seven kinds of sound (of the musical gamut) ; seven, of colour ;
six, of taste, are recognised as gener-al. Of tacts and smells, no such
74 NON-ESSENTIAL QUALITIES [SC, OF
(6) Non-essenjtial qualities are, by their very nature,
more difficult to fix. They are, generally speaking, those
which describe the relation and position of an object, to
and amidst other objects ; thus, well-built, ill-built, near,
distant, commodious, insufficient, etc. Many of the
properties mentioned above as amongst essential, may,
perhaps, on sifting, be found to be non-essential, or
vice versa. Reference to the purpose in hand decides
generally whether a quality is non-essential or otherwise.
(c) Attributes, partaking of the characters of both,
may be instanced as ' heat, cold, temperateness,' * light-
ness, heaviness, weightiness, softness, hardness, firmness,
plasticity, rigidity, elasticity, pressure, suction, support,
etc.,' ' shape, size, duration,' etc. These attributes have
an obvious reference to the latent and patent aspects of
energy, and to Negation ; as the others, properties and
qualities, have to the Self-in-itself, and to the Not-Self
as Many, respectively. Such considerations are capable
of endless elaboration, which, however, has no special use*
But it may be generally useful to pair them off
in opposites, as loud and low (sounds), vivid or bright
numbers are commonly spoken of. Weavers of the world-famous
Kashmir shawls are said to be able to distinguish three hundred colors
and shades with the naked eye. In North India, salesmen of perfumes,
(for the manufacture of which, the towns of Jaunpur and Ghazipur in the;
U. P. are famous), go about with boxes holding a dozen, or a score, or
more, of glass phials, each containing a different kind of scent. Musk
is good for use in cold weather ; rose, khas (scented grass which grows
in speeial marshes in Gorakhpur in the U. P.). bela (a variety of jasmine),
in hot weather. Some are good for all weathers. M. W. Calkins, An
introduction to Psychology, (p. 60), quotes Zwaardemacker (a Dutch
physiologist) as recognising the following classes of smells : ethereal,
aromatic, fragrant, ambrosiac, alliacious, empyreumatic, hircine, viru-
lent, and nauseating. To the Many-ness of Nature-Mdlaprakfti there
is no limit !
P M CH. XIV] PAIRS OF OPPOSITE QUALITIES 375
and faint (colors), hot and cold (tacts), fragrant
arid malodorous (smells), agreeable and disagreeable
(tastes) ; corresponding to the primal pair of pleasure
and pain.
From the psychological standpoint, we may note in
passing, every sense -property is something sui generis,
on the same level 'and side by side with every other*
As sense-properties, all are equal and independent,
and none is grosser or subtler than any other, whence
the current saying : * The musk's fragrance cannot be
made to be realised by any amount of oaths and
affirmations ' } ; i.e., it must be smelt personally to be
known. 8 Thus each sense-property, and each shade
of it, must be experienced directly in order to come
within the precise cognition and recognition of any
jlva. This is the manyness, the separateness and ex-
clusiveness, of sensations. The remarks made and
figures given at p. 458, vol. v, of The Secret Doctrine
(Adyar edn., 1938) will be found very suggestive in this
connection ; and, read together with what has gone
before, may help to show some consistency in the ap-
parently very inconsistent statements made on this
subject in Purayas. Thus, it is declared that in our
world-system, the first ' element ' to come forth (to say
nothing of the still earlier adi or mahat taftva, and
1 *ff| $<R[(farST*fa: OTfa f^T 8 ^ 1
3 It will be seen that, in this sense , not only is Absolute Brahnut
' indescribable ' (see p. 148, supra) but every experience whatsoever.
376 ORDER OF EVOLUTION [SC. OF
anupadaka or buddhi tattva, 1 which are only vaguely
alluded to here and there) was akasha (ether) with the
guna of sound ; then vayu (air), with the guna of touch ;
then fire (agni), with light and form and colour ; then
water (apas), with taste ; and, lastly, earth (kshiti), with
smell ; and it is added that each succeeding one was
derived from the next preceding, and retained the property
or properties of its originator, besides developing its own
special property. 2 Again, it is said in Puranas that the
order of evolution of the elements and properties is
different in different cycles, maha-kalpas, of this and
other world-systems. It is also said that the number of
the elements and corresponding senses and sensations
differs actually (as Voltaire fancied in his Zadig et
Micr omegas) in different worlds, there being eighteen in
or JT?^ 3?3 3J3PWB or fclr^ I In theosophical
literature, the order given is usually adi, then anupadaka, then akasha,
etc., Pranava-vada says adi-tattva is the same as buddhi-tattva, and
anupadaka as mahat-tattva. In current Sankhya works, however,
aham-kara is called bhu>aqli, and it is born from mahat which is the
same as buddhi.
2 It is scarcely necessary to point out that the words earth, water,
fire, air, ether, here, do not mean the substances ordinarily understood
by them in the English language. In ancient Indian thought, Con-
sciousness is the basic fact, the psychical factor is primary, and
the physical is secondary ; therefore moods of mind are regarded as
'creators, 1 evolvers, of modes of matter; each peculiar sensation
or sense-able quality, tan-ma^ra, smell, taste, etc., evolves a corres-
ponding bhuta or tattva, prithivl or kshiti (earth), apas or jala
(water), etc., i.e., the primary atomic aspect thereof (vide Sankhya and
Vaishgshika works). 'Categories' are very fully dealt with in Vaishc-
shika philosophy, under six main heads, 4 ravva (substance), gupa
(attribute), karma (movement), sSmanya (universality), vishe*sha (parti-
cularity), samavaya (co-inference) ; to which some writers have added
a-bhava (non-existence).
P., CH. XIV] QUINTUPLICATION 377
some, thirty-six in others, and so forth, 1 as there are only
five known to us in this world. Such also seems to be the
meaning of the statement that ' this world-system of ours
is crowded round with infinite other systems governed
by Brahmas having five, six, seven and more up to
thousands of faces. 3 Still again, it is said, in the doctrine
of panchl-karana, 8 ' quintuplication,' i.e., the mixing
of each of the five tattvas with each of the other four in
certain proportions, that, at present, each material object
has in it all five elements, and, therefore, the possibility
of being cognised by all five senses ; but the preponderant
element gives it its best-recognised nature. As a fact
we find that beings having different constitutions of
the same sense, and the same being during different
conditions of the same sense, receive different sensations
from apparently the same sense object. Thus it is now
recognised that certain rays that are dark to men are
luminous to ants, and vice versa ; and objects that taste
sweet during health, taste bitter during fever. 4
1 Yoga-V&sishtha.
2 Tripd,d-Vibhuji-Mahd,-Narayana Upamshat, vi.
3 Pancha-dashi, i, 26-30, and Panchi-karana-vivarana.
4 The element of truth in the theories as to ' natural names,' ' true
names,' ' words of power. ' 'mantras,' etc., may be found in these con-
siderations. Given a certain constitution of ear, and also given certain
surroundings, each object, because of the presence of akasha-tat^va
in it and in the surroundings and the ear, will affect that ear with a
certain sound which will be its ' natural ' name. So with ' natural 1
forms, smells, tastes, and tacts, of objects. But because there
are no such ' absolute ' ears and ' absolute ' environments, but only
varying ones, therefore there can be no ' absolutely ' natural names, etc.,
but only 'comparatively' such. To a particular race of men, living in
a particular country and climate, the words of their particular scripture
would be the most ' natural names,' ' words of power,' most effective for
378 ALL QUALITIES EVERYWHERE [SC. OF
All this means again, in brief, that each atom, having
in it the common guna of sense-cognisability, sens-ability,
has also therefore in it what is necessarily included in this
universal quality, viz., every possible particular guria ; but
only one or some are manifest and others latent, in different
conditions of time, space, and motion, to different jivas ;
jivas being regarded as * lines of consciousness '. That is
to say, one kind of atom will mean one thing at one time
evoking the desired results in those climatic and other conditions ; to
others, others. As we pass from the grosser or denser to the subtler,
from the more concrete, particular, special, to the more abstract,
in-de-nnite, general, the range and reach of the ' natural ' quality, etc.,
becomes more and more wide. * Bodies ' are very exclusive of each
other ; even two cannot, each, take the whole of the same piece of
edible ; but a million minds may be in unison in respect qf one thought,
or feeling, or resolve. In the elemental ideas of mathematics and
metaphysics, in the domains of the Mahan-a^ma or Mali at, Universal
Mind, all jivas are of the ' same opinion ' ; in the regions of the vishesha-
tattvas, they differ. As said in Charaka, I, i, (quoted before, on p, 283.)
" Generalisation expands and enhances all bhavas, thoughts, feel-
ings, things ; specialisation, particular! sat ion, narrows and contracts. "
See also Yoga-Su{ra and Bhashya. ii, 19.
Schopenhauer, on pp. 482-3 of vol. I of The World as Will and
Idea (English translation in three volumes by Haldane and Kemp,
pub. 1896), illustrates this same thought in another and fine way :
"... The good conscience . . . arises from . . . the knowledge
that our true self exists not only in our own person . . . but in every-
thing that lives. By this the heart feels itself enlarged, as by egoism
it is contracted. For, as the latter concentrates our interest upon the
particular manifestation of our own individuality, . . . the knowledge
that every thing living is just as much our own inner nature as is our
own person, extends our interest to everything living ; and in this way
the heart is enlarged. Thus, through the diminished interest in our
own self, the anxious care for the self is attached at its very root and
limited ; hence the peace, the unbroken serenity, which a virtuous
disposition and a good conscience affords, and the more distinct ap-
pearance of this with every good deed, for it" (deed) "proves to
ourselves the depth of this disposition ". (Faith is witnessed by deed),
" The good man lives in a world of friendly individuals, the well-being
of any of whom he regards as his own/' Here, Schopenhauer has
caught and described well, one aspect of the V<Janta reason for the
Golden Rule of Ethics. For detailed exposition of this as well as other
aspects, the reader may see the present writer's The Essential Unity
of All Religions.
P., CH. XV] KARMA AND SAT 379
and space to one kind of jlva, and will, simultaneously and
in that same position, mean a pseudo-infinite number of
things to pseudo-infinite other kinds of jivas ; and it will
also mean pseudo-infinite kinds of things to the same kind
of jlva in the pseudo-infinite succession of time and space*
(ii) We may now turn to the karma-aspect of the
atom, corresponding to the Sat and Rajas aspects of
Pratyag-atma and Mula-prakrti respectively.
It may at first sight appear that Sat-being, should
correspond with dravya-substance rather than karma-
movement. But if what has been said before, on the
nature of Sat and Ananda, and of Rajas and Tamas, is
carefully considered, it will appear that Sat properly
corresponds to karma and not to dravya, * Being ' is
what we are inclined to regard as the innermost, the most
important, factor in the constitution of an object, because
it appears prima facie to be the most permanent ; and
dravya, as shown above, is such in the case of the atqm ;
the idea therefore comes up strongly that dravya should
be connected with " being '. But the first premise here
is not accurate. It does not discriminate between ' being *
and ' existence '. What is being, Sat, in Pratyag-at m 5,
is ' ex-is-tence,' asti-Ja, ' outer-is-ness/ in Matter. And
in Pratyag-atma (if such a distinction may be permitted
where there is truly and strictly none possible, and where
all are aspects and all absolutely equally necessary and
To realise the awful powers of sound, consider the maddening skull-
bursting effects that can be produced by magnifying radio-sounds. We
can understand now how the walls of Jericho were destroyed by a
trumplet-blast.
380 CAMOUFLAGE [SC. OF
important), Ananda-bliss, is even more * inner ' than
1 being ' ; it is, so to say, the feeling of own-being ; the
difference between a man looking at himself with eyes
open and again with eyes shut. In this sense Ananda
may be said to 'be even more ' being ' than is ' being '
itself. And karma, therefore, corresponds not to this
innermost being of Ananda, but to the outer being, the
existence, the manifestation of Sat. Existence, reality,
appearance, manifestation, is all in and by action and
movement. A very good physical illustration of this is
the fact of natural history, that most insects, aquatic
creatures, birds, quadrupeds, in wild life, are often so
completely camouflaged by their protective colouring or
markings that they are not distinguished at all from their
surroundings, that they remain as it were non-existent,
even when they are quite close to and right under the eye
of the observer ; but become ' manifest ' at once, i.e.,
' existent,' with the slightest shake, motion, or action. *
Having thus shown that karma represents Sat, we
may proceed to note again that it is inseparable from the
atom, is in fact one of its essential constituents. The
consequence is that every atom is in unceasing motion.
Karma falls also into three kinds : (a) expansion,
prasarana (corresponding to the boundlessness of the
1 Consider the ' puzzle '-pictures, ' find the parrot, monkey, lion '.
The point has been much emphasised in a psychological reference
by the distinguished psychologist, Prof. Ladd, of America, as it has been
recognised by other Western psychologists that ' ' the deepest and most
central current in human nature is the ruling passion *' (Hoffding,
Outlines of Psychology, p. 283), with the additional words. ' as mani-
festing in conduct ', being understood, for our present purpose. See
Science of Emotions and Science of Self ; also p. 270, supra.
P., CH. XIV] KARMA OP THREE KINDS 381
Self), in-breathing, pra-shvasana or ut-shvasana; (b)
contraction, akunchana (corresponding to the separated
mutual repelling and restricting of not-selves), out-breath-
ing, nishvasana ; (c) spandana or sphurana or an<Jolana,
rhythmic vibration (or shvasana, in-and-out-breathing),
corresponding to the (affirmative-) negation which sums
up both movement and counter-movement in itself, and
holds the two others together in the conjunction qf
alternation. The gunas specially arising out of karma are :
shighra-ta, quickness, manda-ta, slowness, and vga, or
gati, speed, velocity, tempo. Minor varieties under each
of the three are endless, as in the case of gunas : thus,
rapid, slow, steady ; ur<Jbva-gamana, upward motion,
adho-gamana, downward motion, tiryag-gamana, side-
ways motion ; u{-kshepana, uplifting, apa-kshepana,
repulsing or casting away, atana, wandering ; vertical,
horizontal, oblique ; centripetal, centrifugal, circumambu-
lant ; etc. 1
(iii) Lastly we come to the dravya-aspect of the
atom which represents the Anancja and Tamas aspects of
Self and Not-Self respectively. It is the ' etat-ness,' the
mere ' this-ness ' of the atom. It is that in the atom
which is the ' heart ' of the thing, its substance, its
inertia, its mass and weight and resistance, all that
; 3!2T I ^R- 1 ?? or -3^3 ; ^-^ or
; ^f^I^ft I Many of these occur in Vaishcshika-lists.
382 THE ATOM'S INSEPARABLE 3 ASPECTS [sc. OF
makes it a something existing in and for itself, so far as
it can have such a pseudo-existence-in-itself at all. It
appears mysterious and unresolvable only when and if,
after asking, ' What is this ? ', we try fallaciously to
answer the question in terms of something else than guna
and karma. The answer to that question must always
be in terms of guna and karma ; or otherwise, merely the
reiteration, ' It is a this. 9 Three aspects make up the
fact of the atom idam, ' this ' (dravya), ittham, * such '
a this (guna), and evam, ' thus** is this acting (karma) ; ]
and they can never be separated from each other.
Dravya too may be subdivided into : (a) substances
with positive weight (predominant), in the aspect of
attraction, guru, heavy ; (b) those with negative weight
(predominant), 2 in the aspect of repulsion, laghu, light,
buoyant ; (c) those with inertia, dead weight, positive-
negative or passive-active resistance to all change,
self-maintenance in whatever condition the thing hap-
pens to be, sthira, stable. 3 Subdivisions of these, as of
others, 'are endless : mahat, bud<Jhi, akasha, vayu, t<jas,
Spas, prthivi, solids, liquids, gases, ethers, metals, non-
metals, organic, inorganic, minerals, vegetables, animal
substances, etc. Some of the qualities arising out of
these subdivisions have been already noticed before in
the gunsu- aspect.
1 TOL; ^^; W*
9 See Dolbcar's Matter, Ether, and Motion, p. 91.
P., CH. XIV] CORRESPONDENCES 383
We have seen that resistance is of the very essence
and nature of dravy a- substance, and we see now that
it has the dual form of attraction-repulsion. This makes
further clear, if such clarification were needed, that
<jravya represents the Ananda and Tamas aspects, which
again correspond to the Shakti-energy of the first trinity*
We desire a thing, we know its qualities, and we act
upon, change or modify, its movements}
The three subdivisions of dravya may also be
regarded as corresponding, in the order in which they
are stated above, to Self and Sattva, to Not-Self and
Rajas, and to Negation and Tamas respectively.
It will have been noticed by readers that the
task, of expressing these correspondences precisely,
becomes more and more difficult as we enter into greater
and greater details and subdivisions, and the same triplet
is repeated under more than one head. The aspects be-
come gradually so, intermingled that they cannot be
distinguished easily, and the assignment of triplets in a
table of correspondences may naturally and reasonably
vary, if the students differ in standpoint and in the
amount of attention paid to each factor, some regarding
one aspect as predominant, and others another. In this
last case, for example, if attraction be regarded as active
affirmation, attention being specially directed to the
activity, and repulsion as passive and steady negation of
1 See J. Ward, art, Psychology, in Encyclopaedia Britannica,
para 9. In Bhagava$a t the triad is frequently mentioned, of tfravya-
jff&na-kriya, instead of ichchh&-jff&na-kriya ; (Jravya being obviously
equated with ichchhS or desire.
384 HARMONY IN DISCORD [SC. OF
others, of manyness, then the two appear reasonably to
correspond to Rajas or Not-Self, and Sattva or Self,
respectively. But if attraction be regarded as unification
of others with self, as se//-assertion over others, and
repulsion as separation of others from self, as pushing
away of others, then it would be right to say, as
said above, that they correspond to Sattva or Self, and
Rajas or Not-Self, respectively. Still again, if attention
were paid to the fact that the unification of attraction,
when it appears in the limited atom, is a false and not a
true unification, that it is the assertion in reality of Not-
Self, which is then only masquerading as Self (that it is,
so to say, fostering the flesh at the expense of the spirit),
while the separation of repulsion is the diminution of
such a false self and therefore an advancement of the
true Self, then we would go back to the corres-
pondence of attractive weight with Not-Self, and of
negative weight with Self. The^ view of this par-
ticular correspondence put forward here as the main
one, viz., of positive weight; to Self, of repulsive weight
to Not-Self, and of inertia to Negation, proceeds
upon the consideration that the fact of the unity
and of the principle of unification present in the
atom is more characteristic, in the present reference,
than the fact that the atom is only masquerading as a
one and a self.
This should not confuse the careful student, but
should only help him to look at every question from
many sides and standpoints, and so recognise the
P., CH. XIV] DIFFERENCES OF INDIVIDUALS 385
harmonising elements of truth in each view, rather than
the discordant elements of error.
The laws previously ascertained apply to this triplet
of aspects of the atom. As these three cannot be
separated from each other, though, turn by turn, one is
predominant and the others in the background, so the
three subdivisions of each are also contemporaneous in
this way ; that one appears to be more manifest from one
standpoint, while another appears to be more prominent
from another standpoint at the same time. This last
statement applies especially to the subdivisions of (Jravya
and karma. It is known that what is solid and
immovable to one individual may be pliable as a liquid
or a gas to another, and vice versa ; and, again, that what
appears to be linear motion from one standpoint appears
as rotatory or curved from another, and vice versa. Pro-
vision for limitation, in time, space, and motion, for
death and re-birth of these aspects of the atom, even
in the midst of their presistent continuance, is made by
the fact of change, absorption and transformation, of
each into other kinds of gunas, karmas, and (Jravyas ;
and, yet again, recovery of their previous condition, in an
endless manner. Ample illustration of this will be found
in physical science, in connection with the doctrines of
pseudo-indestructibility of matter, pseudo-eternity and
conservation of energy, and perpetual transformation of
motion, showing how substances (energies proper), attri-
butes, and vibration, are being constantly changed, all the
while retaining possibility of recovering their older shapes.
25
386 ATOMS VORTICES OF NOTHING ? [SC. OF
Concomitance of these three aspects, cjravya,
guna, and karma, and, by inference, of all their sub-
divisions, from the metaphysical standpoint of the whole,
is especially important and significant to bear in mind.
It will help to show the underlying truth in each, and
reconcile all of t the many conflicting hypotheses of
physical science. Thus : some hold the view that atoms
are nothing substantial but only vortices, pure motion,
vortices (one may fairly say) of nothing ; for even when
the holders of this theory say that atoms are vortices
of ether, they, in order to avoid an obvious petitio
principii, or self-contradiction, take care to describe ether
in terms the opposite of those used in describing matter ;
and so practically reduce ether to nothing. Others say
that they are substantial, whether they have or have not
a vortical or other motion besides. So too, the first
theory of light was corpuscular, that light is corpuscles ;
then it was discarded in favour of the undulatory theory,
that light is undulations ; with the discovery of new
metals, radium, etc., and observations of their behaviour,
the radiatory theory is being reinstated again. 1 So again,
one extreme view is that all sensations are merely vibra-
tions of the objects sensed, transmitted to animal nerves ;
another extreme is that they have nothing to do with
vibrations, (which may or may not be a parallel coinci-
dent), but are things sui generis. Scientists who have
1 The late Dr. Hubbe-Schleiden (of Dohren bei Hannover, Germany)
suggested the following as a more exact statement of these theories :
" 1. Light is emission of corpuscles (Newton). 2. Light is vibration of
ether (Huyghens, Fresnel). 3. Light is emission of electrons. "
P., CH. XIV] ALL ALWAYS CONCOMITANT 387
trained themselves in philosophy also, as many are
beginning to do now, look at the question impartially
from both points of view ; and therefore readily see the
defects of each extreme, and acknowledge that nothing
yet known explains how a certain number of vibrations
at one end of a nerve should appear as the sensation red,
or blue, or yellow, at the other end of that nerve. The
inconclusiveness of all such theories lies in their exaggera-
tion, their one-sidedness, and their attempt to reduce all
the aspects of the atom to only one aspect ; gunas and
karmas to dravya only ; or dravyas and karmas to guna
only ; or gunas and dravyas to karma only. The truth is
that all three aspects are always and inseparably con-
comitant ; that an atom is ever a something, an etat,
a this, which has always a certain motion, a certain kind
of vibration, which motion or vibration, again is always
accompanied by a special sense-property. " The three
aspects are inseparable and are the expression of all that
happens in the physical world. Given one of the three
in all its details, the other two would be known." !
A few more concrete, if somewhat cursory, observa-
tions may be of use to illustrate the simultaneity and
concurrence of all aspects of the atom. Thus, though,
at the present stage of evolution, volume and form appear
to be specially y indeed, even almost exclusively, connected
with the sense of vision amongst all the senses, yet it is
1 Max Verworn, General Physiology, p. 546 ; his three aspects,
however, are " Substance, form; and transformation of energy ", form
being substituted for sense-quality, and transformation of energy for
motion ; not very different, after all.
388 QUALITIES COMMON TO ALL [SC. OP
not so, in reality. Even the current usage which employs
words having a spatial reference, in connection with all
senses, shows this, and is not merely metaphorical. We
speak of bulky or extensive or voluminous or massive
sounds and touches and tastes and smells ; also of their
forms. The words are so employed because of a fact in
nature ; sounds, touches, tastes, and smells also have
volume and form ; they belong to sense-objects, to 6tats,
are in space, time, and motion. The words quantity,
measure, magnitude, etc., apply to all sense-objects and
with a clear meaning. Pitch and timbre of sounds;
freshness or staleness, strength or weakness, insipidity
and vapidity or acuteness and intensity of tastes ; light-
ness or heaviness of touches ; sweet sounds, sweet sights,
sweet scents, and sweet tastes ; beautiful voices, beautiful
forms and colours, beautiful smells ; rough and smooth
tones as well as touches ; all these are illustrations of
the fact. 1 Because of such common features hiding
behind diverse features, under guna as well as dravya and
karma, is it possible to translate sensations of one sense
"into those of another, under special circumstances and
conditions, manipulation of which belongs to that region
of science which is only gradually, with many set-backs,
opening up to the public, under the names of hypnotism,
mesmerism, animal magnetism, psychism, telepathy,
clairvoyance, etc. Cases of psychics able to experience
any sensation with or at any part of. the body are now
1 Lists of sense-qualities given in Mahabh&raja, referred to in
foot-note on page 287, supra, include many such.
P., CH, XIV] COMBINATIONS OF ATOMS 389
recognised by at least some scientists of note. The
obscure Wdantic doctrine of quintuplication of the five
tattvas or sense-elements, (p. 377, supra) seems also to
refer to this subject. It seems to be the completion of
the physics of the universe begun by Vaish6shika and
Nyaya systems in their statements as to anu, atoms,
dvyanuka, di-atoms, trasarenu, tri-diatoms etc.! This is
not clear now in the absence of details, but the suggestion
that they are such completion comes to one who ap
proaches the old books in the spirit of the open-minded
student, no less ready to see alliances than to note dif-
ferences. Working at this suggestion and comparing the
apparently conflicting statements in Pur anas, the student
may succeed in making up some, at least provisionally,
satisfactory system of the essential principles of chemistry,
physiology, and cosmogony, pending knowledge of details
through development of special faculty by yoga.'
We see, then, that all three aspects run on inde-
feasible parallels, even as thought, thing, and motion
always accompany each other, though distinguishable ;
and that change in any of the three will necessarily bring
about a change in the other two also. In a sense, it is
true, there should not be any change in the (Jravya ; a
mere * this ' will remain only * this ' ; and cjravya
079$, 3T59 I The last is explained in some books as tri
diatoms, in others as tri-atoms. Modern science makes the ' atom '
more complex.
* The student will find much help and suggestion on this point in
theosophical literature generally, and in The Secret Doctrine of H. P
Blavatsky and Ch. I of Ancient Wisdom of Annie Besant especially.
390 MEANING OF CHANGES [SC. OF
constitutes the pseudo-permanent element in the atom ;
yet, seeing that each 6tat is inseparably connected with a
quality and a motion, it happens that there is, as com-
mon observation shows, a sort of change of nature in the
substance also. The substance is no longer recognised
as the same. The energy has also changed its form.
Water becomes gas, and people naturally and not un-
reasonably say that the substance has changed, as well as
motions and qualities. 1 In this sense, the tat-tva, ' that-
aess,' the element, may properly be said to change*
Rigorously speaking, there can be no change in mere,
pure, ' this ' (dravya) ; but no more can there be any
change in mere, sheer, ; such ' (guria), or in mere, ab-
stract, 'thus' (karma). What changes is the particularised
condition of each as limited and made concrete by neces-
sary relativity to the others.
We have now generally defined and described the
three universal attributes of the atom. , Wherever an
atom is, there must be present these three also. What-
ever its variations, these must accompany it. Let us now
try to find out something more about the variations of the
atom generally. These variations will naturally be most
1 The phenomena of allotropism and isomerism are illustrations.
Views of chemical philosophers as to the development, one after
another, in a ' periodic ' succession, of the various so-called ' elements '
out of one primal kind of root-matter, are also in accord with those
propounded in the text above and in Puranas and Sankhya as to
successive genesis, one from another, of the five maha-bhu|as. Compare
also, G. W. de Tunzelman, A Treatise on Electrical Theory and the
Problem of the Universe, (pub. 1910), p. 505 : " When the term energy
is substituted for force, the V&Jic scheme of development becomes
identical with the one which expresses the most recent developments of
physical research, viz.. the Absolute or Eternal Self Consciousness
MindEnergy Ether--Matter."
P., CH. XIV1 SPHERE, THE UNIVERSAL FORM 391
prominently connected with guna-quality and karma-
movement, though change in these will cause the appear-*
ance of change in <J r avya-substance also*
Under guna, we have inferred that in respect of form*
corresponding to Not-Self, Stats, this-es, have, by reflec-
tion of the unity and completeness of Self, one universal
underlying form, the sphere, and a pseudo-infinity of
other forms made up of the inter-mixture of points and
lines. In respect of volume, corresponding to Self, the
common fact is only this, that there must be ' bulk,'
' triple-dimension/ ' extension,' some size ; and the detail
is that the 6\a.t must have every possible size. Thus we
have atoms of all possible sizes, * each size of atom (with
corresponding other qualities, vibrations, substantial
nature, etc.) constituting one plane of matter ; each plane
constituting the 'outer' sheath, the material, -of a
pseudo-infinite series of world-systems on the same level
with each other ; and the next minuter size constituting
the * inner,' ' spiritual ' or ' ideal ' counter-part and core
thereof and therein. The case is the same with special
qualities. The presence of some one quality, of * sense-
cognisability,' is common and inevitable ; but there is no
restriction as to what that must be. Reason and the
' In order to see the element of truth in this very absurd-looking
statement, the reader may read Fournier d'Albe's Two New Worlds.
Yoga- V As is ht ha stories of worlds within atoms, and atoms within
worlds again, ad infinitum, are made ' scientifically intelligible ' by this
work ; see the present writer's Mystic Experiences or Tales from
Yoga-V&sishtha. Pranava-V&da, of course, has much light to throw
on this as on other points dealt with here. The scientific discovery of
1 systems ' of ' electrons ' within each atom also helps \o explain and
support the ideas of the text.
392 ALL ALWAYS EVERYWHERE [SC. OF
law of non-arbitrariness require that the whole of all
possible qualities must be present in the whole and every
part of the World- Process, manifesting, of course, to any
onejiva, only in succession.
The main kinds of karma-movements of atoms may
be deduced, as a tentative hypothesis, as follows. We
have seen that the basic ultimate atom everywhere, in
whichever world-system we take it, would be a sphere,
though size and quality may vary ; for it is formed by
the aham-consciousness revolving round itself in the
circle of the log ion. But, existing side by side as spheres,
the forces of approach and recess work between them, as
mutual attraction and repulsion. Every atom endeavours
to approach and recede from every other simultaneously.
The same atom would attract as well as repel another at
the same time. In other words, every atom would try
to absorb another into itself for its own growth (corres-
ponding to the intensification and expansion of the con-
sciousness ' aham 6tat (asmi),' (' I-this-am) ', and at
the same time to resist being absorbed into that other
and losing instead of intensifying its own self-existence
and identity. With attraction and repulsion coming into
play, the self-revolving spheres would begin to move in
straight lines towards or from each other. At this stage
movements would become manifest. Before this, (from
the standpoint of the particular world-system we may be
in) the self-revolution would not be apparent as move-
ment ; the atom would scarcely be apparent even as a
something ; that there would be in it, even then, a
P., CH. XIV] MAIN KINDS OF MOVEMENTS 393
necessary movement of self-revolution, would be only a
metaphysically necessary assumption. The next stage
would be, that, after one atom has secured and subordinat-
ed another, absorbed it into itself, (the why and how of
which may appear afterwards), the two together, making
a line, would now fall into the self-revolving movement
of the stronger, and the circular-disc movement would
result. Lastly, the disc revolving on its own axis would
become the sphere again, but a sphere, the sphericity
and motion of which are manifest, instead of hypo-
thetical! as in the condition of the primary atom.
We may consider here that as the shortest line is
composed of two atom-points, and the smallest disc
must, be made of such a line circling around itself
according to the motion of the stronger atom, so the
smallest solid sphere should be made of at least, and also
at most, of three such lines crossing each other at the
middle and revolving round that point on the axis made
by the strongest line. In other words, the manifest
sphere would consist of three double-atoms. Such is
1 The three movements, of (straight-line-running-to-and-fro) piston,
{circling) wheel, (revolving) sphere, seem to be the only elementary
movements, of which, all possible other motions, however complex, are
made up. Nature appears formidably complicated ; but it is all only
appearance, pretence, illusion ; to her persevering devotee she un-
covers her simple Beauty, ' like a loving bride to a loving bride-groom ',
jaya iva patyuh, ushatf su-vasHh. The most unravellably tangled up
Skein of thread is still ravellable, given the needed unflagging per-
severence ; because, obviously, the whole tangle is the twist ings, turn-
ings, knottings, inter-lockings, of a simple straight thread. Electricity
finds its way unerringly and instantaneously through the most inextricably
tangled Gordian knot of wire which connects the switch and plug with
the fan or lamp, And as electricity can, so can human fingers, if they
are only sufficiently persevering ; for, obviously, however tangled the
knot, it all is the twistings and turnings of only one single thread.
394 METAPHYSIC OF MATHEMATICS [SC. OF
perhaps the metaphysic underlying the vague available
statements of Nyaya-Vaish6shika, as to diatoms being
first formed from atoms, then tri-diatoms from diatoms,
and the world our own world-system at least from
them. 1 This order reproduces respectively, the Absolute,
the duality of Self and Not-Self, and the triple duality
(cognition-desire-action in soul and quality-substance-
movement in body) of the jiva-atom the individual, the
definite one (which most systems of numeral notation
express by a line), formed by the junction of a self with
a not-self. Intermixtures and modifications of these
main movements, viz., linear, circular, and revolutional
or spiral, make up the inevitable pseudo-infinite variations
of movements in the World-Process.
As to variations of the dravya-aspect, it has been
said that they accompany variations of the other two. It
need only be added that the greater the number and the
more restricted the area of the rhythm-movements, the
revolutions, of the atom and the derivative molecule, the
more firm, rigid, gross, and exclusive and resistant for
others, and attractive and insistent for themselves, they
would become ; and per contra, the smaller the number
and the wider the area of the movement, the subtler,
more plastic and more evanescent, they would be. The
atom of each world-system being regarded as repre-
senting mere ' objectivity/ Not-Self, Etat, This, it
follows that it is uniform and unchanged throughout the
life of that system. Differentiation probably begins with
1 See f.n. on p. 389 supra.
P., CH. XIV] ATOM, NOT INVARIABLE 395
diatoms, which may be regarded as coeval with gunas,
these corresponding, in the jiva-atom of a system, to
what the tanmatra, 1 would be in the consciousness of the
Ishvara of that system, as may be seen later. The gunas
referred to here are their special sense-qualities, sound,
touch, etc., considered psychologically. The differentia-
tion may be considered as definitely marked at the stage
of tri-diatoms, corresponding to the ' gross-elements ',
sthula-bhuta-s, defined and characterised by these sensa-
tions, viz., akasha, vayu, etc., and to the respective outer
sensory and motor organs of the living beings of that
system. These tri-diatoms may, then, for practical
purposes, be regarded as representing that dravya-aspect
of each thing which is variable. Before the develop-
ment of these tri-diatoms (in the Vaish6shika, not the
modern chemical, sense) there would be probably no
manifest differentiation of the 'various tattva-s, * sense-
elements,' one from the other. Variations of such
ultimate molecules of a world-system, as physical science
is now gradually showing (in terms of ' atoms,' however,
rather than of ' molecules '), would correspond with
variations of resistance and density, of number and kind
of vibrations, and of special sense-qualities.
We see then, that the atom is not an invariably
fixed quantity. Its fixedness is only an appearance, and
exists only in connection with world-systems taken
singly. 2 Just as a stone, a tree, an animal, a human
; see p. 372 supra.
* Bergson, Creative Evolution, p. 214 : " When we observe that a
thing really is where it acts, we shall be led to say, as Faraday was, that
396 INFINITE VARIETY OF ATOMS [SC. OF
being, have an appearance of permanence and con-
tinuance from day . to day, and yet are changing inces-
santly from moment to moment ; just as a whirling torch,
or catherine-wheel, or gas-flame, has the appearance of a
flat disc or sheet of fire, though something altogether
different in reality ; so an atom has only a pseudo-
fixedness and sameness of size-duration-movement, etc.,
in space-time-motion. The appearance of fixedness in
incessant change is due to the imposition of * sameness '
by a connected individual consciousness the conscious-
ness of the Brahma the chief Individualised Cosmic Mind
in each world-system. In other words, the nature of
the jiva, as Self, imposes (according to its own neces-
sities, to be dealt with later), a certain sameness and
continuance, while the nature of the atom, as Not-Self,
requires incessant change ; reconciliation is found in the
constant repetition of the vibrations which maintain the
other attributes together with themselves. Apart from
such appearance of fixity, there is truly a pseudo-infinite
variety in every aspect of the atom, and a pseudo-infinite
pseudo-infinity, pseudo-infinity within pseudo-infinity.
Thus each size of atom, together with all its attributes
and qualities corresponding to that size, is necessarily
all the atoms interpenetrate, and that each of them fills the world ; " in
other words* ' All is everywhere ' ; but Bergson jibs at the remaining two
words of the VetJ&nta maxim, viz., ' and always '. He has his peculiar
view of creative evolution as a ' durational ' progress, in time. Still
his views, and those, f.i., of Sir J. Jeans, that atoms can be " annihi-
lated " by being " transformed into radiation ", can be reconciled with
the common atomic theory, by considerations like those advanced in the
text. Jeans also says: "An electron must, in a certain sense at least,
occupy the whole of space"; Mysterious Universe, p. 71. Jevons'
views have been noted before (p. 180) to similar effect.
P., CH. XIV] INFINITE IN INFINITESIMAL 397
pseudo-infinite in number, and would be found in
every part of space and time. Yet, when the geometrical
axiom, which applies to all things in space, says : " Two
things cannot occupy the same space at once," how can
all- these pseudo-infinite sizes of atoms exist in the same
space ? The reconciliation is to be found in the fact that
this apparent pseudo-infinity is a * psychological,' an
' ideal,' infinity, entirely created and carried along with
itself, wherever it goes, by the Consciousness of the Self
as a foil to its own infinite-infinity. The geometrical
axiom does not apply to the Absolute-Consciousness
which transcends and includes Space-Time-Motion, and
creates all the infinite overlappings of individuality which
have been mentioned before, and which correspond to
the apparent overlappings of the atoms. 1 Yet again,
lest there should be even the appearance of a violation of
the geometrical axiom, the various sizes, whenever and
wherever examined by any one individual consciousness,
would be found to fit one into another (as water in sand)
and constitute the different and interpenetrating planes
of the world-systems.
Thus it happens that what is an atom to one jiva,
within the limits, spatial and durational, of a solar
system, may contain whole worlds within itsen to a
jiva sufficiently minute. And, vice versa, what is a
solar system to us may form only an atom to a jiva
sufficiently vast. The repeated and much emphasised
1 From the transcendental standpoint, all possible things
tions) are contained in the single point (-sphere) of this Absol
sciousness.
398 WORLDS IN ATOMS [SC. OF
statement in Yoga Vasishtha, that a world contains
atoms ; and teach of these atoms a world ; and that
world, atoms again; and so on ad infinitum, is justi-
fied in this manner in a very literal sense. 1 Consider
here what was said before, as to the chain of individual-
ities in a single organism, and as to the Virat-Purusha ;
then the thought may become clear. The student will
also be greatly helped by the researches of physical
science, going to show that what has till now been re-
garded as the indivisibly ultimate atom, consists of hund-
reds of ' corpuscles,' * and by the tentative results of
1 Yoga V&sishtha speaks also of different kinds of ' space,' especial-
ly three, mah-akasha, chitt-akasha, and chi^-akasha, fitting one within
the other, in somewhat the same sense as the different ' sizes ' of atoms
mentioned above, and corresponding to them, or to the three bodies.
3 The word ' atom ' has been used here, throughout, as equivalent to
the words ' anu ' or ' param-anu ' of Samskrt. The new word ' ion ' is,
it seems, nearer to ' anu ' ; but it has not yet got a recognised position in
western, science and philosophy, and is still competing with ' corpuscles,'
'electrons,' etc. When the ideas and words have settled down in the
course of a few years, it may perhaps be useful to change our nomen-
clature also. This ' settling down ' is, however, not a very likely event,
except in a very comparative sense. Like ' fashions ' invented by the
artistic-minded, first, then invaded and copied by the ' vulgar ,' then
abandoned to them, after the invention of new fashions, to undergo a
similar fate in turn ; like the ' veil after veil ' which will lift only to leave
1 veil upon veil behind ' ; like the ' bodies ' which Brahma successively
puts on and casts off to be taken up and occupied by different orders of
beings, devas, asuras, fairies, gancjharvas, human beings, etc., (Bh&ga-
vafa, III, xx) ; like houses and institutions built up by some, and
' captured ' and occupied successively by others ; like these is the fate of
words. )ther meanings than those originally intended usurp them, and
new woros have to be coined to accommodate those old meanings. In
the meanwhile, the idea intended to be conveyed by the word 'atom ',
here, is that of a piece or particle of ' 6 tat,' ' this,' ' matter/ which, fox
the time, and in the particular world-system, and from the standpoint,
with which we may be concerned at the moment, is ultimate and
' indivisible '. Sometimes, though very rarely, the word has been used
here as equivalent to ' sheath ' or ' body ' ; and this has been done be-
cause, in the particular connection in which the word has been so used,
the sheath or body is the irreducible minimum which the jiva requires foe
its manifestation.
P., CH. XV] ORDER IN DISORDER 399
enquiry by budding superphysical senses, so far as they
are publicly available. 1
How order is imposed on this infinity of disorder ;
how the World-Process is ever an organic whole, within
whatever limits of space-time-motion we take it ; and
how this pseudo-infinity of pseudo-infinities is held
together in co-ordination, in a system of planes within
planes, lokas within lokas, by the mighty stress of the
Principle of the Supreme Individuality or Oneness of the
Universal Self this may all appear in the next chapter
on the jlva.
CHAPTER XV
JIVA-ATOMS SUBJECTIVELY, i.e. JIVAS
AT the outset of this chapter we may note that the
aspects of size, 2 specialised with reference to the jiva,
would be ' range or extent of consciousness in all its
manifestations, cognition, desire, and action/ ' its definite-
ness or intensity,' and its ' calibre or scope generally ',
These would subdivide into ' broad-mindedness, narrow-
mindedness, rationality or common sense/ ' vagueness or
weakness, clearness or strength, distinctness or firmness/
4 long-headedness or far-sightedness, width of interests,
depth/ etc.
1 Vide Annie Besant's Occult Chemistry.
9 See p. 368 supra.
400 JIVA AS CONSCIOUSNESS [SC. OP
As to specialisations of duration and vibration, it
need only be said that the words used in connection with
matter in the preceding chapter apply, by ordinary usage,
to corresponding features of mind also.
With these brief suggestions, we mav pass on to the
features more prominently characteristic of the jlva, as
the embodiment of consciousness.
The entire nature of consciousness is exhaustively
described by and contained in the words : " I-This-Not
(Am)." This is the Absolute-Consciousness, the true
Chid-ghana, ' compacted Chit,' Maha-Samvit, ' Great
Consciousness,' which, in its transcendence of and absolu-
tion from numbers, limitations, and relations, includes all
that is governed by numbers, limitations, and relations,
and indeed is all. This Consciousness is the Absolute,
and .includes both the factors of what is ordinarily
distinguished as dvam-cjvam, pair, of Chit, ' the
Conscious' (corresponding to Pratyag-atma) and Jada t
1 the Unconscious ' (corresponding to Mula-prakrti). It
may not unreasonably be objected, because of this fact,
that the word ' Consciousness ' is not altogether suitable
as an epithet for the Absolute, even with qualificatory
adjectives* But it becomes unavoidable, now and again,
to describe the Absolute in special terms borrowed from
the .triplets of attributes of Pratyag-atma and Mula-
prakrti, which are the Pen-ultimates of the World-
Process, as the Absolute is the very Ultimate and the all.
The nearest approach to the Ultimate is obviously by the
Penultimates ; hence the necessity of speaking in terms
P., CH. XV] THREE FUNCTIONS OF MIND 401
of the latter ; and this is why Brahma is described, in
Upanishats and other works on Vedanta, now as ' Pure
Consciousness ' or Shuddha-Chit, again as Maha-Sat or
' Boundless Being,' and finally as Ananda-ghana or
Ananda-maya, ' composed or compacted of Bliss ' ; also
as the Tamas beyond Tamas, ' the darkness beyond
darkness,' Shuddha or 'pure' Sattva,, and Paro-
Rajas, transcending-Rajas. And so, for our present
purposes, we have to speak of Brahma as the Absolute-
Consciousness, slightly emphasising the Pratyag-atmic
aspect thereof rather than the Mula-prakrtic ; but care-
fully guarding the while against possible misconstruction,
by openly stating that fact at the outset.
In its unique completeness, then, this Absolute-
Consciousness includes every possible cognition, every
possible desire, every possible action, all at once and for
ever ; even as it includes all possible objects of cognition,
desire, and action, namely qualities, substances, and
movements. But, taken as consisting of successive
and separable parts in the pseudo-infinity of World-
Process, it appears as broken up into three aspects
jnana-cognition, ichchha-desire, and kriya-action. How
these three and only three aspects arise in the jiva,
on the collision and coalescence of Self and Not-Self,
has been already outlined in chapter IX supra, on
Pratyag-atma, where the genesis of Sat-Chit-Anan4a is
explained. To restate :
An ego bound to a non-ego in the bond of the logion
is necessarily bound by a triple bond at three points ; is in
26
402 IN TERMS OF SUBJECT AND OBJECT [SC. OF
contact with three corresponding points in the non-ego,
viz., jnana-ichchha-kriya, on the side of the ego, and guna-
dravya-karma, respectively, on that of the non-ego.
4 1-this-(am) not ' in this fact we see the following :
(1) ' I ' and ' this,' being placed opposite to each
other, are either turning face towards face, or face away
from face. The ego cognises, perceives, the non-ego,
receives into itself reflection and imprint of that non-
ego (metaphorically as well as literally, as will appear
later), or ignores and forgets it. This is (dual or, with a
middle state, triple) jnana.
(2) ' I ' tends to move towards or away from ' not-I '.
This tendency is desire, corresponding to the affirmation-
negation of Shakti. 1 It is (dual or rather triple) ichchha.
1 See pp, 165-169 supra. Desire may be said to correspond with
Negation in this obvious sense : It consumes its object. It denies to it a
separate existence and devours it, swallows, merges its object into the
desiring self. Food is eaten up by the hungry person. Man and woman
espouse each other, two becoming one. When an English poet sings,
" For each man kills the thing he loves," etc., the thought, though put
in an extreme and evil form, is not altogether different. The gems and
jewels and fineries that people admire and desire, they put on their per-
sons and make them part of their ' personality ' . The three (psycho-)
physical appetites, for food, adornment, sex, are thus * negation-al ' of the
separateness of their objects. That which was a separate idam, or eta$,
1 this,* is converted by them into mama, ' mine ' (the diluted weaker form
of 'I,' its ' sphere of influence,' its ' aura '), and then into aham, ' I \
(Witness, how politico-economic ' spheres of influence ', ' protectorates ',
' mandates ' . ' markets ' , ' trusts ' , become absorbed) . The three corres-
ponding (physico-) psychical appetites, for honor, wealth, and power,
respectively, behave in the same way. Wealth becomes ' my property, 1
power says ' I am the State,' the honoured person begins to think ' these,
who honour me, are my obedient followers '.
In a somewhat similar sense, knowledge and action also may be said
to tend to abolish the separate existence of their objects. To know, to
understand, ' another,' fully, we must ' get into his (or its) skin,' ' see with
his eyes,' ' feel as he feels,' ' put ourselves into his position,' ' stand in
his shoes ' ; we must sym-pathise (or ero~pathise, as some psycho-
analysts say) with him to the extent of identifying him with ourselves.
P., CH. xv] THE FUNCTIONS AS Consumers 403
(3) The ego actually moves towards or away from,
the non-ego, This is (dual or rather triple) kriya.
All these are but modifications, forms, aspects, or
degrees of the main fact of identification or separation
between Self and Not-Self.
Fichte seems to have endeavoured to express the
same or a similar idea thus: " (1) The ego exhibits itself
as limited by the non-ego (i.e., the ego is cognitive) ;
(2) conversely, the ego exhibits the non-ego as limited by
the ego (i.e., the ego is active)." '
This is the real significance of the rapport of yoga-sam&dhi. (Yoga-
sutra, i, 43, and iii, 3). We ' understand,' to the acute extent of ' feel-
ing,' every little pain and pleasure of our body, because we have identi-
fied ourselves with it ; this is one aspect of the truth indicated in the
doctrine of solipsism ; this is why mothers ' understand ' the pains of their
babies. That action subserves the purpose of ' identifying ' its object
with or ' approximating ' to, or subordinating it to the will of the actor,
goes without saying, seeing that action arises out of desire. But this
feature of knowledge and action is due to their inseparable connection
with desire. In the case of ' aversion,' ' ignoring ' and ' putting away, 1
' negation ' appears in another aspect ; abolition of the ' other ' is still
there, though in another manner.
Primal Libido, Elan Vital. Horme, Appetite, Urge and Surge of
Life, Shakti-Desire, Kama, is for Self-Realisation, S y a m, ' May I be ' ;
its next development isBahu S y S m, ' May I be Much or More ; the
further and final is Bahu-dha S y a m, ' May I be Many ' or Many-
formed '. Skt. names are L o k a-e s h an a, desire for ' local habitation
and a name', appetite for Self-preservation of physical-self by food,
and of psychical -self by honor and glory, name and fame; Vit$a-
e'shana, for Self-expansion by possessions, adornment, homestead,
wealth, property ; and Dara-suta-(Shakti)-6shapa, for self-conti-
nuation (immortalisation, sempiternahsation) by spouse-and-child and
power over them (in the present, as well as in the future, by will and
testament). The first corresponds broadly to jnana and <Jharma; the
second to kriya and arfcha ; the third to ichchha and kama. All are
inter-dependent; indeed, barely possible to distinguish. They are more
fully dealt with in Science of Emotions, and Science of Social Organi-
sation (which deals specially with (Jharma-artha-kama) . Incidentally,
it may be noted that the present work, The Science of Peace , corresponds
with Jffana ; The Science of Emotions, with Ichchha ; The Science
of Social Organisation , with Kriya ; while The Science of Self may be
regarded as summation.
1 Stirling's Schwegler, p. 265.
404 ACTION BETWEEN EGO AND NON-EGO [SC. OF
In other words, we may say that there is a mutual
action and cognition between the ego and the non-ego :
the action of the non-ego upon the ego is the cognition
of the non-ego by the ego ; and the cognition (if the
expression may be used) by the non-ego of the ego is
conversely the action of the ego on the non-ego. When
the ego impresses itself on the non-ego, we have action
from the standpoint of the ego, and cognition from that
of the non-ego. When the non-ego imprints itself on
the ego, we have cognition from the standpoint of the
ego, and action from that of the non-ego. To this it
should be added that the condition intermediate between
cognition and action, intermediate between the ego's
1 being influenced and shaped ' by the non-ego, on the
one hand, and its ' influencing and shaping ' the non-ego,
on the other, is desire. The corresponding condition of
the non-ego would probably be best described by the
word tension. This desire is always hidden, while cogni*
tion and action are manifest.
Multifarious triplets arise under cognition, desire, and
action. (1) ' Waking, sleeping, dreaming ' ; ' presentation
oblivion, representation ' ; ' knowing, forgetting, recollec-
tion ' ; ' truth, error, illusion ' ; ' sensation, conception,
perception ' ; ' term, proposition, syllogism ' ; ' pada,
vakya, mana ' ; ' concept or notion, judgment, reasoning* ;
' reasonableness or sobriety, fancy, imagination ' ; ' real
or actual, unreal or fanciful , ideal ' ; 4 observation,
thought, science '; * concentration, meditation, attention' ;
attention, distraction, re-searoh (or rapport, union,
P., CH. XV] MULTIFARIOUS TRIPLETS 405
yoga-samadhi) ', etc. (2) ' Like, dislike, toleration ' ; ' love,
hate, indifference ' ; ' partiality, carelessness, justice ' ;
4 desire, emotion, will ' ; etc. (3) ' Action, reaction,
alternation or balance ' ! ; ' activity, indolence, effort ' >
4 restlessness, fatigue, perseverance ' ; ' act, labour, in-
dustry ' ; * action, plan, scheme ' ; ' evolution, involution,
revolution ' ; etc. These may be treated of in detail
later on/ In the meanwhile, some observations as to
the general relations of subject and object, individuals
and the surroundings they live amidst, the more pro'
minent conditions of the life of the World -Process, may
be recorded here.
It has been said that an ego is literally imprinted
-with and modelled to the shape of a cognised non-ego,
and that cognition by an ego means and is the action
of a non-ego upon it. It might be questioned how it is
that action, cognition, and even desire, which are the
attributes of Self, subject, can ever belong, or be spoken
of as belonging, to Not-Self, object ; and, conversely,
how the capabilities of being acted on, cognised, and
desired, which are the attributes of Not-Self, can ever
1 A very important triplet, which is but another aspect of and supple-
mentary to the Law of Causality, and explains how the fundamental Unity
is being constantly restored in succession also, as causality preserves
it in continuity. " Past reason bunted, and, no sooner had, past reason
hated." First ' am this ', and then ' (am) not this ', the net result being
always the I.
2 Pranava-Vada, 3 vols. (19101913), gives hundreds of such
triads. " Every thing in this world is a trinity completed by the
-quaternary " ; H. P. B., I sis Unvailed, I, 508. Dr. James H. Cousins,
A Study in Synthesis, (pub. 1934) works oat a number of quartettes in
a fresh manner ; the work should receive more attention than it seems to
have yet received, from students of philosophy generally, and members
of the Theosophical Society specially.
406 MUTUAL REFLECTION [SC. OF
belong, or be spoken of as belonging, to Self. The answer
is this. If we were speaking exclusively of the Universal
Self or the pseudo-universal Not-Self, and if it were
possible to really separate them, then it would be per*
fectly correct to say that jnana-ichchha-kriya, or rather
their root-principles, chit-anancla-sat, belong exclusively
to Self ; and guna-karma-dravya, or rather their root-
principles, sattva-rajas-tamas, belong exclusively to Not-
Self. But we are now in the domain of the limited and
the particular, and are dealing not with abstract
Pratyag-atma and pseudo-abstract Mula-prakrti, but with
limited, separate, selves and not-selves ; and it has been
amply shown in the last two chapters that a limited self
(soul) means a composite of Self and Not-Self, a jlva-
atom, wherein the jiva-aspect is predominant ; while a
limited not-self (body) equally means a composite of
Self and Not-Self, but a composite in which the
atom-aspect is predominant. The consequence of this
is that we find both triplets of attributes present
in every such composite, although of course one
triplet always preponderates over the other, thereby
giving rise to the distinction between animate and
inanimate.
Thus it comes about that each separate not-self,
being ensouled by a self, and therefore being a pseudo-
self, assumes, by the connection of identity with the
universal Self, the characteristics of the latter ; and this
assumption takes on the form of a pseudo-infinite
endeavour to find, and therefore to spread and impose,
P., CH. XV] RADIATION, MENTAL AND MATERIAL 407
itself on everything, everywhere, and aUO-ways. 1 Hence a
pseudo-infinite radiation, by vibration, of each and every
not-self, that is to say, of each and every piece or mass
whatsoever of Mula-prakrti, out of the pseudo-infinite
permutations and combinations of all possible sizes of
such pieces or masses, to which it is at all possible to
apply the adjectives ' each ' and ' every '. In other
words, each and every not-self is endeavouring pseudo-
infinitely to reproduce itself and fill infinity with its own
form ; as is now nearly established even by physical
science, in the doctrine of the incessant and endless
radiation and mutual registration by all objects of their
own and of all others' pictures of all qualities whatsoever,
sights, sounds, smells, etc. ; and this is the action of the
not-selves, upon the selves, which action, in the selves,
appears as cognition. 5
1 The supplement to this fact is that each separate self or soul, being
em-bodi-ed by a not-self, endeavours similarly to ' radiate '. ' propagate 1 ,
1 spread ', ' impose upon all others ', its own notions, thoughts, ideas,
views, knowledg-es, feelings, tastes, interests, likes and dislikes, voli-
tion, willings, enterprises, activities.
* In this fact, with its ' physical ' and ' superphysical ' implications,
i.e t , its working in the grosser and subtler planes of matter, may be
found the reason why 'every secret must out,' some time or other to
some one else, if not to the general public, for ' murder ' does not always
' out ', to even the cleverest police ; and also why, while a secret is being
kept, for that time it makes the inner body stronger and fuller, whence
we have such facts, observations, and injunctions as these : vows of silence
make the inner life of the mind richer, promote and strengthen thought,
just as restraint of expenditure increases the treasury-balance, or sex-
continence enhances vigour of body and mind and intensifies feeling ;
certain people do not find life worth living unless they have a secret to
keep ; they revel in mysteriousness ; others find pleasure in leading
* double ' lives, stolen joys being sweeter to them ; the names of the
ishta-4eva, the worshipped god, the venerated preceptor, the parents, the
spouse, the children, in short all those specially near and dear and
408 INFINITE MULTIPLICATION [SC. OP
This reproduction, it is obvious, takes place literally.
When we see an object, the picture of the object is
imprinted on our eye, on the retina ; that is to say, the
retina (or the purpurin, with which, as the latest
researches go to show, the retina is covered) takes on,
becomes modified into, the very shape of the object seen ;
and the eye is, in the life of the physical plane, veritably
the very ego that sees. In the moment of seeing with
the physical eye, it is impossible to say : ' My eye sees
and not I.' What is invariably said and meant is:
1 / see.' The I and the organ of vision are here literally
honoured, must not be lightly taken, for relations with the bearers of
those names belong to the life of the heart, and avoidance of levity
and flippancy with regard to them strengthens and develops the higher
nature and the siikshma-sharira. Another and more obvious psychologi-
cal reason for avoiding, in unsympathetic company, the mention, with too
much unction, of the objects of one's love and devotion, is, that it only
too often arouses ridicule, or jealousy, or anger and counter statements
of the .greater merits of other's ; witness, sectarians' quarrels It has to
be remembered that in all these cases the secrecy, the silence, the
restraint, are effective for their purpose only up to a certain extent.
Carried to excess, they fail and cause harm. They must come to an end,
some time, by the metaphysical laws of nature ; they should be brought to
an end, periodically, wisely, scientifically, for greater good.
It should 'be noted that, not all secrets, being kept, make the inner
body stronger in the healthy and pleasant sense. Sins committed or
helplessly suffered by oneself (as by the victims of sex-violence), or even
simply seen being committed by others, if kept, weigh upon the soul,
oppress it grievously, suffocatingly, often drive it mad. Such phenomena
have been investigated by psycho-analysts with useful (also harmful)
results. But even in these cases, the general observation holds true that
4 the inner body becomes stronger and fuller ' ; only, it becomes such, in
the painful sense ; not the pleasurable. Pain intensifies and prolongs the
consciousness. The tongue keeps working round the fibre sticking
between the teeth; the mind keeps working round the painful secret
sticking between its normal functionings ; the emotions concerned are
deepened. In case of excess, either of pleasure or pain, disintegration
of the body may happen, and does happen; in the case of pain, very
frequently.
p., CH. xv] EGO Becomes ORGAN 409
identical for all purposes. 1 It is the same with every
other sense. The immediate reason of this is that while,
in the converse case, the activity of the apparent not-
self is due to its hiding a self within, in this case the
shapability, which is cognition, of every self, is due to its
hiding within a not-self, a sheath, an upadhi. As in the
one case the not-self strives to achieve infinity in pseudo-
infinite reproduction, because of having become identified
with a self, and therefore the universal Self ; so, in this
case, the Self becomes limited and reflective, because of
having become identified with a not-self.
In order that Self and Not-Self, so entirely opposed
to each other, should enter into dealings with each other,
it is necessary that each should assume the characteristics
of the other, and so, abating their opposition, making a
compromise, come nearer to each other. The interchange
of substance between nucleus and protoplasm is a good
illustration. 2 In this fact we see before us the principle
of the genesis of upadhis, sheaths, organisms, and organs
of sense and action. The ego becomes (of course, illusorily
and apparently, and for the time being) the organ of sense
or action, in order J;o perceive the sense-able or act upon
it. ' The AtmS who knows (i.e., who is feeling the stress
?E?JiTmrf?r I Brhad-&ranyaka, I, iv. 7:
4 Breathing, It becomes that which is named prana-breath ; speaking,
voice ; seeing, eye ; hearing, ear ; men tat ing, mind ; such are Its
functional names ; functionings of the self are named faculties '. In other
words, functions create organs ; not organs, functions.
1 Verworn, General Physiology, p. 518.
410 THE Why OF ORGANS AND MEDIA [SC. OF
of the consciousness) ' may I smell this,' becomes or is the
nose (the organ of smell), for the sake of (experiencing)
odour.' l
Such is the metaphysical significance of the organs
of sense and action. They are the very jlva for the time*
The jlva is identified with them entirely while they are
working. For there is no sufficient reason for a distinct
and separate third something, an instrument of media-
tion, not only a relation but a thing, between the only
two factors of the World- Process, Self, on the one side,
and Not-Self, on the other. 3 That they are at all dis-
tinguished as karana, 3 ' instruments,' is only from the
standpoint of the abstract Self.
The metaphysical significance of sense-media, odor-
ous particles, saliva, light, air, ether, etc., is similar. 4 The
1 Chhandogya-Upanishaf, VIII, xu, 4-5.
2 The words ' distinct and separate ' should be noted ; for if we
remove this condition, then we do have a pseudo-infinity of planes or
grades of density-subtlety of Matter, each of which may be said to link
together a next denser with a next subtler.
4 The NySya system has a theory that (as in the case of saliva) rays
of light, proceeding from the organ of vision to its object, assume the
shape of that object, and returning to the eye, produce vision ; the
modern scientific view is that the rays go kom the object to the eye.
The Greek philosophers also believed in an " effluvium " or " eidolon/'
acting as a tertium quid to make possible the approach between the
opposed subject and object. We speak of ' bright eyes ' and * dull lack-
lustre eyes ' ; feline eyes shine in the dark. That light is a substance
amenable to the section of gravitation, has been much discussed by
Einstein and others, since deflections of rays from stars were observed
during a solar eclipse in May, 1919. A dry tongue or nose cannot taste
or smell. Saliva is the overflow of ' self ' and the enveloping of a ' not-self '
with ' self ' ; and transforming the ' not-self 'into ' self ' and absorbing
and as-stwito-ting it with ' self, ; hence salivation is necessary to
digestion. The same considerations apply to the other senses and their
objects.
P., CH. XV] INTERPENETRATING INDIVIDUALITIES 411
systematic and psychologically consistent names for
these media, in Samskrt, whatever their exact nature
may be ultimately determined to be, are prthivl (earth)
for the medium of odour, apas or jalam (water) for taste,
tjas or agni (fire) for vision, vayu (air) for touch, and
akasha (ether) for sound. These media are, according
to V6danta, the five pervasive root-elements, tattva-s or
maha-bhuta-s and not the compounds we live amidst
distinguished and defined radically by their special
sensuous and active qualities, which are said to go in
pairs ; thus, sound and speech with ear and vocal organ
belong to akasha ; vision and figure (-and-color-)- forma-
tion with eye and hands belong to agni ; and so forth. 1 And
their agency, to secure communion between organ and
sense-object, is metaphysically necessitated, in order, by
the fact of diffusion through space, to give to the sense-
object the semblance of the Universal Self, which reaches
and includes all and is within the reach of all. This perva-
sion, which, metaphysically, is pseudo-infinite in extent, is
actually reproduced in the fact that each brahm-anda,
* great-egg/ ' egg of the Infinite,' world-system or macro-
cosm, is pervaded by one individuality; just as each pind-
anda, microcosm, a human organism, is pervaded by one
individuality. The vast masses of the root-elements that
serve as the sense-media of the organisms inhabiting our
1 In the human kingdom, ear as sensor and voice as motor, and eye
as sensor and finger as motor, are best developed ; writing, formation
of visible letter-figures is done by the fingers. Ants and some other
kinds of insects seem to communicate by touch and antennae ; dogs and
certain moths, by smell.
412 Why ISHVARA-S ARE PERVASIVE [sc. OF
brahm-anda, for instance, constitute, in their totality, the
body of the Ishvara who is the brahm-anda ; the unity
of his individuality brings together our senses and
sense-objects in these sense-media; while he himself
is but as an infinitesimal jiva in a vaster brahm-anda,
a sidereal system in which our solar system is as a grain
of sand in a solar system ; and so on pseudo-infinitely.
This is why Ishvaras are also called vi-bhu, * per-
vading.' 1 It is only the principle of overlapping in-
dividualities, in another view. Later on there may
appear more on this point, viz., how communion between
two separate things, subject and object, in the way of
cognition, desire, and action, is possible, and takes place
only because the two are also one, since both of them are
part of a higher individuality, a larger subject.*
The remarks made in the preceding chapter as to
the pseudo-infinite series of involucra of the jiva, one
within another, should be recalled im this connection.
Taking the case of vision, for instance, we find as the
first step, that the act of seeing means the picturing of
the object seen on the retina, which at that stage is for
TO site f?T, Gtfrf^l: f
Bh&gavafa, XI, iv, 3, 4.
' He who is the Beginning of All, having ideated a Frame, made of
five elements, entered into it, and became the Fountain of n a ra-s.
P., CH. XV] EVER GREATER INWARDNESS 413
all purposes identical with, and is, the seer. But
analysing further, we find that, in the human being, the
act of vision is by no means completed with this picturing
on the retina. Vibrations of nerves convey the picture
to a further centre in the brain not yet quite definitely
determined, it seems, by physiological investigations.
Physical research leaves the matter here for the present.
But metaphysic deduces, as an inference from the in-
separable 'conjunction of dravya-guna-karma, that, what-
ever that brain-centre might be ultimately decided to be,
it will be found that just as the vibrations and particles
of the outer visible object, transmitted through the
' ether ', (or whatever other element may finally be
determined to be the medium of light, and however it
may be named, the Samskrt name being tejas, as said
before), make a picture of that object on the retina, so
the retinal picture, which has now in turn become
' the outer visible object ' to the more-inward-receded
jlva, is transmitted in still more minute particles, by
humans, jivas ; therefore he is named Nar-ayana. All this triple world-
system is His Body ; all the sensors' and motors of all beings are derived
from His, are parts of His ; His self-consciousness is all Knowledge, His
Breath is all Energy-Desire, which creates-maintains-destroys ' : panthe-
ism in a fresh aspect. Berkeley also has seen and said that the percep-
tions of individuals are only participations in the perceptions of the
Universal Ego. The name Kavi, Poet, Dramatist, Author, is especially
appropriate for Brahma. The 'perceptions', experiences, sayings,
doings, of every character in a drama, are all only ' participations ' in
the Ideation of the Author ; all ideas are parts of the One Universal
Ideation. Great public movements, enthusiasms, panics, are partici-
tions in the ideas, ideals, feelings, views, sentiments of one (or more, but
wm-ted) leader (or leaders), with sufficient intensity of will and feeling
(tapasya, divine force, hot and glowing will). Epidemics, Yuga-dharma,
Kala-dharma, Time-spirit, Zeit-geist- indicate the same fact.
414 MEANING OF ' I ' AND ' MINE ' [SC. OF
nerve-vibrations, to a corresponding subtler organ or
brain-centre which is now masquerading as the seer in
place of the eye, in the present condition of organisms.
And further research will show the process repeated
preudo-infinitely inwards, taking the sheath into subtler,
and ever subtler planes of matter.
But while this series of sheaths, one within another,
is theoretically pseudo-infinite, in practice and as a
matter of fact if we take any organism, in any one
cycle of space and time we shall necessarily find that it
consists of only a limited and countable number of such
sheaths, with one unanalysable core ; the very filmiest of
films it may be, but unanalysable any further, for the
time being ; and in that cycle, this core represents,
and for all purposes is, the very self ot the jiva.
From another and higher standpoint, embracing a
wider cycle of space and time, that film will also be
analysable, and be seen to be not the innermost core
but only an outer sheath, hiding within itself another
core, which will then be irreducible. Evidence of this
we find even physically, in comparing the earliest avail-
able unicellular organisms of our terrene life and
evolution, with the latest most complex ones. In the
human being, the brain with its centres takes the place
of Self, and is the main, seat of consciousness (from the
standpoint of physiology), but is hedged round and
overlaid with numbers of other parts of the body, nerves,
ganglia, senses, etc., through which only it can be
reached. In the unicellular organism the nucleus is
P., CH. XV] OF ' MY EYES ', ' MY EARS ' 415
probably the centre of consciousness, 1 and is, as it were,
all the brain; .the sense organs, etc., in one ; in its case,
the jiva has not yet learnt to make the distinction
involved in the expressions, ' my eyes, 1 ' my ears '
between the jiva (identified with the brain as centre of
consciousness) and its sense-instruments ; and hence it
has got no centre of consciousness, which may be separate
from sense-instruments. But when the consciousness
begins to make such distinction, the nucleus at once
resolves into a subtler core (apparently, but not yet
positively ^determined to be, the nucleolus) with different
parts wrapping it round ; and under the continuing stress
of the individualised consciousness, there appears the
progressive development and differentiation of functions
and instruments which is called evolution.
It should be noted here that the expression ' my
brain ' has not the same significance as ' my eyes ' and
* my hands '.* Of course it has a certain meaning, but
the consciousness of my brain being distinct and different
from me is by no means so definite, full, and clear in the
ordinary man, as is the consciousness of the eyes and the
hands being thus different and distinct. The expression
gains fuller and fuller significance as the ' I ' retieats
further and further inwards, and is able to separate itself
more and more actually from the physical body. ' My
clothes ' has a much fuller and clearer meaning than
1 Verworn, General Physiology, p. 508.
* The ashvaftha-tree, with its roots above and its branches below,
spoken of in the Bhagavag-Glja, xv, 1, probably means the nervous
system of man, also, besides other things ; brain above, nerves below.
416 'MY BRAIN', 'MY SOUL' [SC. OP
4 my bands and feet ' ; * my hands and feet ' has a much
clearer and fuller meaning than ' my brain '. ' My sukshma
sharira,' ' my karana sharira,' * my soul/ are practically
(but not theoretically) meaningless in the mouths [of
people who have never t succeeded, by means of yoga, in
separating them from the outer physical body. To
advanced souls, who have succeeded in doing so, * my
brain ' has a meaning as definite as * my shirt V
This development of the complex from the simple,
this opening up of separated individual consciousness
through layer into inner layer, this gradual ^growth of
nerve within nerve and instrument within instrument,
this definition of body within body, this multiplication of
the means to the simple ends or rather the one end, this
4 long-circuiting ' of the satisfaction of the elemental
appetites of life or rather of the one appetite of Self-reali-
sation constitutes the evolution of the individual, from
the standpoint of limited cycles. 2 To take a fanciful
1 See The Mahatma Letters, p. 259. Master K. H. has gone into
samadhi-trance, for three months (in 1882) in search of "supreme-
knowledge". Master M. has promised to him to carry on his theoso-
phical work and correspondence with Sinnett and Hume. In the
coarse of a letter to the former, Master M. says : " I may as well
occupy a few minutes of my time to write to you in the best English I
find lying idle in my friend's brain ; where also I find in the cells of
memory, the phosphorescent thought of a short letter, to be sent by
himself." Master M. says that his own knowledge of English is not
so good as Master K. H.'s; but the reader can scarcely think so; of
course the style is very different.
2 ' Long-circuiting ' is a very significant word, coined in ' the
science and art ' if electricity. The whole World-Process is a long-
circuiting of the simple Relation between I and Not-I. Commentaries
and critical expositions and illustrations are the long-cirquiting of the
meaning of aphorisms and maxims.
P., CH. XV] LONG-CIRCUIT SELF-REALISATION 417
illustration : it is as if we should, to increase the power
and range and minuteness of our vision, first put on a pair
of spectacles, then add a telescope, and over that a miscro-
scope, and so on indefinitely. In this imaginary illustra-
tion the additions are outwards. In evolution, by deli-
berate yoga, on the nivrtti-marga, ' re-turn or re-ascent
into Spirit ', they would be inwards, a retreating within
into subtler* and subtler planes of matter ; on the
pravrtti-marga, descent into Matter ', they would be
outwards too, each self taking on denser and denser veils
of matter to enjoy the experiences of a greater and
greater (seeming) definition of itself ' I (am) this, 9 I
(am) this '. From the standpoint of the Absolute, on
the other hand, all cycles and all evolution, all functions,
all instruments, and all functionings and actual workings
of them, on all possible planes of matter, are ever com-
pletely present in the transcendent consciousness : " I
This Not (am)."
Thus we come back again and again to the fact of
an endless series of plane within plane of matter, all
permeated and pervaded by the consciousness in its triple
aspect of jnana ichchha, kriya. " Veil upon veil will
lift, but there must be veil upon veil behind." Let us
see now how these pseudo-infinite planes of matter can
be co-ordinated and brought into organic unity with each
other. Co-ordinated in fact they must be ; for the
tats, * this-es ' separate in their pseudo-infinity though
they are by very constitution are not and cannot be
mutually entirely oblivious and independent, when the
27
418 MATHEMATICS AND METAPHYSICS [SC. OF
thread of the One Self runs through them all, and strings
them together like beads.
Different planes of matter, though separate from,
and, from one standpoint, independent of, each other to
such an extent that they may even seem to violate the
axioms of geometry, cannot escape these axioms alto-
gether. As usual, we have disorder as well as order,
negation as well as affirmation, defiance of law and yet
submission thereto, here as well as elsewhere. Consci-
ousness appears to transcend mathematical laws ; but it
is only the Universal Consciousness of Pratyag-atma that
can at all be said to do so, and this too only when it is
considered as a whole, comprehending and at the same
time negating the whole of Mula-prakrti. 1 Otherwise, it
itself is the source and the embodiment of that unity,
uniformity, regularity in diversity, the fact or brief
description of which uniformity is called a law, and
which appears when Self is intermingled with Mula-
prakrti (as it always is), under the changeless stress of
Absolute-Consciousness, Brahma. Limited individual
consciousnesses are inseparably connected with limited
' this-es ' ; hence they can never actually transcend those
1 It is only in respect of this one Supreme ' self-contradictory ' fact
that Metaphysics transcends, is beyond, Mathematics. But this one fact
has important consequences and corollaries, which, for practical
purposes, connect metaphysics more nearly, as it were, with the
psychological, ethical, logical, and biological sciences, than with mathe-
matics and the physico-chemical sciences ; though, strictly, metaphysics,
as repeatedly said, is equally connected with all sciences and co-
ordinates them all. Mathematics deals with space, time, energy-motion,
taking its start from certain purely metaphysical notions, as pointed out
before. Metaphysics deals with these as well as with their Abolition,
their Opposite, the Infinite Here, the Eternal Now, the utterly Motion-
less Self, full of Perfect Rest and unshakeable Peace,
P., CH. XV] MEANING OF LAW 419
laws. That they appear to do so from some standpoints,
is due to their identity with Pratyag-atma. The world
of the lower astral plane, whose normal inhabitants are
said to be yakshas, gandharvas, kinnaras, nagas, kush-
mandas, gnomes, undines, fairies, and such other nature-
spirits, with bodies made of the same or similar ' stuff,'
4 mind-stuff,' as our grosser dreams and mental images,
may seem literally to ' occupy the same space ' as the
physical world, whose normal inhabitants are humans,
animals, plants, minerals, etc. But this is not really so.
The facts available point to the conclusion that as soon
as the human develops the body and the instruments
which enable him to begin to live consciously in the
astral world as he does in the physical, he sees that the
two worlds, at the most, interpenetrate, as sand and
water, or water and air, and do not actually and
literally occupy the same space. In other words, planes
of matter, that appear utterly disconnected from the
standpoint of individual consciousnesses limited to each
plane, become only grades of density of matter from
the standpoint of a consciousness that includes all of
them.
This thought may now be expanded as follows :
The simile used above, of thread and beads, illus-
trates the fact of order amidst disorder, and also covers
another fact which is essential in the work of co-ordi-
nation. In the chaplet, each bead touches but two others,
one on each side, and not more than two; and so
too we find that Sarpsara, World-Process, is triple,
420 TRIPLE WORLD. Why TRIPLE [SC. OF
tribhuvanam, trai-lokyam, 1 whenever and wherever we
take it. This fact, that it is always a triple world, when-
ever and wherever we take it, gives the method of the
co-ordination ; for each factor of each such triplet is also
concurrently connected with two other triplets ; and as
this connection extends pseudo-infinitely, it results that
all possible planes are ringed together always. Thus
taking the three planes of our world-system, viz., sthula,
sukshma, and karana * (roughly corresponding to
physical, astro-mental, and causal, of theosophical litera-
ture) and naming them F, G, and H, we should find, on
research, that F is simultaneously connected with three
triplets, D E F, E F G, and F G H ; so G with E F G,
F G H and G H I ; so H with F G H, G H I and
H I J ; and taking any of these triplets, say H I J, the
mutual relation of these three would be found to be the
same as that of F G H ; that is to say, to a jiva to whom
J represented the physical, I would represent the astro-
mental, and H the karana plane. And this series of
triplets extends endlessly before D and after J .
Before passing on to the reason of this state of things,
it may be well to note that the interpretation of tri-
bhuvanam, ' triple world/ or ' three worlds,' advanced
here, is not exactly what is commonly understood by the
word, just as the inmost meaning of the sacred word,
AUM, is not what is commonly given. Yet there is no
conflict or inconsistency between the two interpretations*
P., CH. XV] Why ANALOGY 421
On the contrary, the other interpretations all follow
necessarily from the inmost one. Students wonder now
and then how it is that resemblances occur in different
departments of nature ; and when it is said that one and
the same statement may be interpreted in many ways,
-each correct and each applying to one class and one
department of phenomena, sober people generally suspect
some sleight-of-hand. As a fact, a statement of a true
principle of nature, concerning one of the Ultimates,
or rather, strictly speaking, Penultimates, naturally
applies to all the different series of phenomena derived
from and constantly embodying those penultimates ;
and the wonder may as well be, how there is differ-
ence between part and part of nature, as how there is
resemblance. Mula-prakrti explains the difference ;
Pratyag-atma > the resemblance. 1 The law of analogy,
1 The Unity of Self as pmni-present, is the reason, the cause, of
-whatever uni-formity, similarity, analogy, we find anywhere and every-
where. It is the real reason for the certainty felt in induction, other-
wise utterly fallible. ' Once, therefore always ' ; ' as in one place, so
in all places. 1 The older Nyaya-Vaish6shika gives the reason of v y a p t i-
graha,' ap-prehen-sion of pervasiveness 1 , i.e., ' inductive generali-
sation ' , as being pratyaksha, ' direct perception ' of j a t i , ' genus ' ,
together with v y a k{ i , 'the particular ', because of sama-vaya;
' co-inherence ', inseparability, of ' particular ' or ' singular ' or ' indi-
vidual ' and ' general ' or ' universal ' . The new Nyaya calls the same
fact or process, by the name ofpraty-asatti. Max Muller, in his
Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, has recognised that the very impor-
tant category of s a m a-v a y a "is one peculiar to Indian philosophy ",
and ' ' though this relationship is known in non-Indian philosophies, it
has not received a name of its own, though such a term might have
proved very useful in several controversies. The relation between
thought and word " (31^3^) "f-i-, is Samavgya, inseparableness. . . .
There is Samav&ya between threads and cloth, father and son, two
halves and a whole, cause and effect, substance and qualities, the two
being interdependent and inseparable"; (seepages referred to, against
the word ' Samavaya ' in the Index to Max Muller's book).
422 CORE, SHEATH, NEXUS [SC. OF
* as above so below,' s a m a-d a r s h i t a, ' same-sighted-
ness', 'same-seeing- ness ', is capable of a far wider and
truer application than is now charily given to it ; and it
provides the reason of the existence of allegories and
parables, in which there is as much literal fact as meta-
phor. Because of this universal applicability of basic
laws, tri-bhuvanam, * triple world ', when it means only
three different but interconnected worlds or planes of
matter, according to the ordinary explanation of the
word, means something which is the necessary resulf of
the metaphysical triplicity of all the life of united jlva
and atom, i.e., of the jiva-atom. In this metaphysical
triplicity, which is the inmost meaning of tri-bhuvanam,
lies the reason for the state of things described in the
preceding paragraph.
Everywhere we find the world and ttfe things of the
world divided into an inner and an outer, a core and a
sheath, and a third something, a principle, a relation r
rather than a fact or factor, binding and holding these
two together. This is due to the very constitution of
the Absolute as shown in the Logion, viz., an inner Self,
an outer Not-Self, and the third something, the affir-
mative-negative Shakti, which ties the two together
indissolubly, and yet is not a third strictly, but only
a repetition of the positivity, the being, of Self, and
of the negativity, the nothingness, of Not-Self. So we
find, in the department of consciousness taken by itself,
an outer or real world, and an inner or ideal world,
and a third something, the abstract consciousness, or
P., CH. XV] BUDDHIC WEB OF LIFE 423
self-consciousness, or apperception, or pure and abstract
reason, as it has been variously named, holding the two
together. This pure or abstract reason is the embodi-
ment and source, as said before, of all abstract laws and
principles, which are but forms of this Self-Consci-
ousness in its relations to the objects by means of which
it may be realising itself at the time.
'I see this book before me ' this consciousness is a
consciousness of the ' real ', the ' outer,' world. ' I
remember the book, in memory ; I have thoughts about
it, i.e., I call up mental pictures of the book in relation
to other things, its author, country, press, people,
in which and by whom it was printed, published, and
criticised ; of other books on the same subject which
have been written in other times and places ; of the
whole history of the gradual growth of learning on the
subject treated of in the book, and the causes thereof,
etc.,' these are facts of the inner, the ideal world. Lastly
there is the consciousness (corresponding to the Absolute)
which joins together and connects, in my own self, these
two sets of facts, those belonging to the ' Me ' and those
to the * Not-me,' and weaves them into the one process
of my life. That the thread of Self through the beads
of Not-Self is, or appears as, budcjhi, laws, principles,
apperception, self-consciousness, etc., may become clearer
if the matter is considered thus : * I know and wish and
act, and / know 1 that I know and wish and act ' this is
1 Or, better, ' I am aware that I know and wish and act.' for to say
I ' know ' instead of ' am aware,' seems to make the element of know-
ledge or cognition more essential to Self-Consciousness than the elements
424 Why OUTER WORLD & INNER WORLD [sc. OF
self-consciousness. ' I am aware also that I knew and
wished and acted before, and shall know and wish and
act afterwards, in the same way, when the circumstances
are the same ' this is the same self-consciousness modi-
fied into reason, ratio-cination, ratio-nality, perception of
the ratio, relation, of sameness, of similarity, amongst
not-selves, because of the persistence and sameness^
through past, present, and future, of Self. * Such an
experience, knowledge, desire, or action, is always followed
by such another ' this is the same self-consciousness
modified into and stated as a law, a principle.
How and why does this state of things come about ?
Why is there an outer world and inner world ? How does
this distinction between the ideal and the real, ideas and
realities, arise at all. and what is the distinction between
them precisely ? ]
of desire and conation or action, which is against fact. Samskrt words
corresponding to apperception, etc., are anu-vyavasaya, pra ty ay- an u pa-
shy ata, buddhi-bodha, nija-bodha, atma-nubhava, sakshita, upa-
^rashtri-ta, etc.
1 Self has been regarded above as linking up (by containing within
itself, both) the ideal and the real, inner and outer, within and without,
i.e., mental and material. A simpler and perhaps practically more
useful way is to say that ' mind ' is the link between Self or Spirit and
Not-Self or Matter. In Mind, both are present ; and all the Interplay
of Spirit and Matter, 'past, present, and future ', is present in Mind.
The present is, is existent ; the past was ; but is not ; the future will
be, but is not. The present is the only real ; it emphatically is.
What we see around us, what we are, at any given moment, carries
with it an intense convincingness of actuality, factness, reality,
existence. Yet the passing of a year, a day, even a simple catastrophic
moment, abolishes all that intense reality, and converts it into a
dream of the past ; and that too a more or less quickly fading dream !
From the metaphysical standpoint, therefore, the present is the only
and the most wn-real ; because obviously evanescent, moment by
moment. From that standpoint, past and future may be said to
be far more real, or even the only real, because permanently present
in the Supra-Conscious of God's Memory. To that Memory, all the
P., CH. XV] CONTINUITY IN DISCRETENESS 425
For answer we have to refer back to the principle
which is always turning up on every side under every
complication of phenomena, when that complication is
sifted. Pratyag-Stma is the unbroken continuity of the
One. Mula-prakrti, on the other hand, is the utterly
discontinuous brokenness and separateness of the many.
The two have nothing in common with each other ; in
fact they are ever and at every point entirely opposed
to each other. Yet they are violently brought together
into inviolable relation by the might of the Absolute-
Svabhava, the Changeless Nature of the Absolute. The
reconciliation of these warring principles, each equally
invincible, necessitates the further principle of 'continuity
in discreteness,' whereby each discrete thing is in turn a
thread of continuity to even more minutely discreted
things and lower subdivisions ; and, conversely, each
thread of continuity is in turn a discrete and subdivisional
item in a higher thread of continuity and this endlessly.
This principle applies to the constitution of a so-called
atom as also of solar systems, which include smaller
systems and form part of larger ones in a series that is
Procession and Panorama of the whole Universe of all possible and
actual stars and systems, is an Eternal Now. Thus, what is real from
the empirical standpoint, becomes wn-real, or Ideal, from the metaphysi-
cal or transcendental standpoint ; and vice versa. The finite passing
moment is most intensely real to the finitised or individualised jiva ; the
in-finite contents of Mahat-BucJdhi, Supra- Consciousness, Universal
Mind, are the most intensely real to the Infinite Self. The jfva grips
the Finite with one hand, and embraces the In- Finite with the other
whence arises the assurance of ' personal immortality ' , jivan-mukti ; feet
on earth, head among stars ; nest in tree, flight in empyrean'; some
mechanical occupation, even so-called 'drudgery, 1 for livelihood of
body, and poetry, science, art, yoga-si(J<Jhis, religion-philosophy, for
livelihood of soul.
426 THE ABSOLUTE, AN ETERNAL SENSATION [SC. OF
endless either way; and it underlies the continuously
overlapping series of individuals within individuals which
make up the jiva-half of the World- Process.
This same principle, applied to the psychic half of
Samsara, that is to say to consciousness ; and even there
to the cognitional element specially (in connection with
which it is most manifest) ; explains why there should
be two worlds to consciousness, an ideal and a real,
memory and sensation, and a third something holding
the two together. The application may become clear if
we endeavour to understand in a little more detail what
is the significance of memory and other allied psycho-
logical processes, and how and why they come into
existence.
The Absolute may be correctly described as an
eternal sensation in which the Universal Self, in one single
act of consciousness senses the non-existence of Not-Self ;
that is to say, of all possible pseudo-infinite not-selves
in all the three divisions of time past, present, and
future ; of space length, breadth, and depth ; of motion
approach, recess, and rhythmic vibration. Now each
separate individual jlva or self, out of the whole mass of
pseudo-infinite jivas or selves, (the totality of which is
unified in and by Pratyag-at m5 ) must also necessarily
reproduce in itself this one single act of consciousness,
this truly unique sensation, this all-embracing, all-ex-
hausting experience, by reason of its identity with the
universal Self ; yet it is impossible also for it to do so,
because ot its limitedness. The reconciliation of these
P., CH. XV] MEANING OF MEMORY 427
opposed necessities gives rise to the ideal world in which
we can ' look before and after ' simultaneously (compara-
tively only), as distinguished from the real worldJn which
we can have only one sensation at a time (again only
comparatively), successively.
Thus, to begin with, the individual self requires two
acts of consciousness to sense the non-existence of a
single not-self. It cannot compass this in one act, like
the universal Self. It must first sense the existence, and
then sense the non-existence of that not-self. In the
second place, it has to deal with pseudo-infinite not-
selves ; it can sense them all only in, so to say, twice
pseudo-infinite acts of consciousness, which means, in
other words, in endless acts of consciousness, extending
through endless time, endless space, endless motion.
Confining ourselves for the moment to the case of one
self dealing with one not-self, we see that that self first
senses and asserts the existence of that not-self (as identi-
cal with itself), and secondly senses and asserts the non-
existence of that * same ' not-self (as non-identical with
itself). The word 'same* here embodies what we know
as * memory,' The imposition of continuity on an ever-
changing not-self by a self, in consequence and by virtue
of its own continuity, is memory of that not-self. Putting
the matter in another form, while all the possible past,
present, and future of the World-Process is completely
and simultaneously present in the consciousness of
Pratyag-atma, it unfolds, as a mayavic or illusive appear-
ance of procession, only gradually and in succession, in
428 MEANING OF THE ' PRESENT ' [SC. OF
the actual life of the individual ; and the constant partici-
pation of the individual self, in the omniscience latent
and ever-present in Pratyag-atma, constitutes the inner
ideal world of so-called sub-consciousness or supra-
consciousness, mahat or mahan-atma or buddhi, whence
arise memory and expectation and derivative mental
processes. 1 Consider, in this connection, the fact that,
even in ordinary usage, the word ' present ' never means
an imaginary point of time, dividing, as with a razor, the
past from the present, but always a period, ' a slab or
chunk of time ', so to say ; thus, ' at the present time,'
* at present,' ' in this present life,' * the present circum-
stances ', etc. 2 So, * the past ', the ' future ', also, ordin-
arily, in common usage, mean more or less definite
periods, 'blocks or pieces ' of time, ages, epochs ; thus :
* the future of this nation ', * the past of that person '.
The above statement is, however, not complete bj"
itself.
Firstly : if the separate self can freely participate in
the omniscience of Pratyag-atma, how is it that our
recollection and our prevision are so very limited, so very
erroneous ? Not one in a million can remember or fore-
cast any facts behind and beyond this present birth ; and
even the facts of the present life are but very imperfectly
3 3ricW If-^rmr^n^ I Nyaya-sZtra, Ill, ii, 42.
' Recollection (is possible) because of the all-knowing nature of the
Self.' Compare Ward's views as to memory-continuum ( Art. ' Psycho-
logy/ Bnc. Brit., llth Ed.)
'See p. 316 supra, and, The Secret Doctrine I, 110, 116
(Adyar edn.)
P., CH. XVl PRATYAGATMA AND INDIVIDUAL 429
remembered and pre-vised. The answer to this is that
while, metaphysically, this continuity of memory and
expectation in the individual self is derived from the
consciousness of Pratyag-atma, practically and actually
it is derived from the consciousness of the individual of
the next higher order, 1 the Ishvara as Sutratma, just as
in the case of the connecting unity of sens^- media;
whence limitations. And as to the positive errors and
forgettings within those limitations, they are due to the
general causes which make knowledge and ignorance,
recollection and forgetfulness, truth and error, possible,
nay, necessary, in the World-Process at large ; these
causes have been indicated above (pp. 404-405) in dealing
with the sub-divisions of cognition.
Secondly (and this is more relevant to our
present purpose), there is the difference between the
possibility of participation and actual participation. As
soon as there is a positive act of memory, or positive act
of prevision or expectation, it becomes distinct from the
possibility of such recollection and prevision. 9 One,
piece, so to say, of the latent has become patent, and the
general latency remains a latency as ever before. And
all this while, from the standpoint of the Absolute, there
1 See pp. 347-348 supra, for the significance of the expression, ' the
next higher individual '. Also Bh&gavata, XI, iv, 4, 3?2ffifa35:p i K!f- f
g*raffifrTfr, p. 325 supra.
* Bu<J<Jhi and Manas ; Total (Collective or Universal and sub-supra-),
Un-Conscious and Conscious (with its degrees of pro-, fore-, co-Con-
scious etc.) ; Avyaktam or Unmanifest and Vyaktam or Manifest ; Abs-
tract and Concrete ; General and Special ; Universal and Particular ;
all these pairs indicate aspects ot the same Fact.
430 THE POSSIBLE AND THE ACTUAL [SC. OF
is no difference at all between latency and patency ; for,
in the Absolute, all things which are limited, and can be
distinguished, are exactly on the same level of 6tat-' this '
in the same way, and not one within or higher or lower
than, or in any way different from, another. The solution
of these inconsistencies is that what is latent to one is
also patent to it in turn, and simultaneously to others,
while what is patent to one is also latent to it in turn,
and simultaneously to others ; and thus the equality of
all is brought about, all existing simultaneously from the
standpoint of the Absolute, all serving as latent and
patent, ideal and real, one within another, at the same
time. A hundred sculptors see a hundred different
statues in the same block of marble simultaneously.
The facts of physical science, re infinite registration by
each atom of all sights, sounds, etc., are helpful for
understanding, here.
We may further illustrate the fact thus. If a spectator
wandered unrestingly through the halls of a vast museum,
a great art-gallery, at the dead of night, with a single
small lamp in one hand, each of the natural objects, the
pictured scenes, the statues, the portraits, would be
illumined by that lamp, in succession, for a single
moment, while all the rest were in darkness, and after
that single moment, would itself fall into darkness again*
Let there now be not one but countless such spectators,
as many in innumerable number as the objects of sight
within the place, each spectator meandering in and out
incessantly through the great crowd of all others, each
P., CH. XV] ILLUSTRATIONS 431
lamp bringing momentarily into light one object, and for
only that spectator who holds that lamp. This immense
and unmoving building is the rockbound ideation of the
changeless Absolute. Each lamp-carrying spectator, in
the countless crowd, is one line of consciousness in the
pseudo-infinite lines of such that make up the totality of
the One Universal Consciousness. Each coming into
light of each object is its patency, is an experience of the
jiva ; each falling into darkness is its lapse into the
latent. From the standpoint of the objects themselves,
or of the universal consciousness, there is no latency, nor
patency. From that of the lines of consciousness, there
is. Why there is this appearance of lines of conscious-
ness should be clear from all that has gone before. 1
We see then that whenever and wherever we take
the World-Process, we shall find it to consist of an
outer plane of grosser matter which corresponds to and
makes up the ' real ' world, the patent, and an inner plane
of subtler which makes up the ' ideal ' world, correspond-
ing to the latent. At each stage, the jlva-core consists
of matter of the inner plane, while its outer upadhi,
sheath, consists of matter of the outer plane ; and when
a person says: ' I think, 1 'I act,' it means that the matter
1 For other illustrations, see p. 232 supra and World-War and Its
Only Cure, pp. 411-413 f.n., Each lamp, each point of light, each
Jiva, in the illustration above, is a focus of the Diffused Continuum of
Light, viz., IJniversal Consciousness. Focussing does not mean com*
plete concentration of all the Light in one point an obvious impossi-
bility. It only means a comparative (and that too, only illusive) intensi-
fication in one place, and slight reduction in the neighbourhood.
W. James* phrase, ' the hot point of consciousness,' is very good. Every
act of attention creates such a hot point.
432 THE IDEAL AND THE REAL [SC. OF
of the inner core, which is the * I ' for the time being, is
actually, positively, modified by, or is itself modifying in
a certain manner, the outer real world, literally in the
same kind of way, though vastly subtler, as a glass may
reflect an image, or a compressed wire-spring may push
back the object which compresses it. The ideality of the
inner processes is due to the fact that the inner film of
matter is posing and masquerading, for the time, as the
truly immaterial Self. 1
Let us take some concrete facts to illustrate the
above remarks. The lower we descend in the scale of
living organisms, the less we find of that individuality,
that self-consciousness, which looks ' before and after,' of
memory and expectation in short. And the less we find
of these, the hazier is the distinction between inner and
outer, ideal and real. But as in no living organism which
persists through even two moments of time can there be
an utter absence of a unified consciousness, of an indi-
viduality, of the sense of ' before and after,' however
vague and dim it may be, so can there not be an utter
absence of inner core and outer sheath. But in the higher
organisms, this distinction, of a persisting core and a
more or less changing sheath, is much more definite. In
the average man, the sukshma-sharira (so named in
1 In this fact may be seen illustrated the doctrine of Sankhya that
mahat, bwjldhi, abamkara, manas, etc., are all derivatives of Prad ban a
or Prakjti, born because of the simple juxtaposition of Purusha, and are
therefore all jada, ' material'. Intellectual and other mental proceesss
are shapings, colorings, stressings. etc., of the ' mental body,' as much
as vision is the shaping of (the purpurine on) the retina. The element
of 1-consciousness. attached to the' shaping, belongs to the Self alone
That is the One and Only Thing or Fact that is non-material.
P., CH. XV] INNER BODY AND OUTER BODY 433
Vecjanta, and corresponding to the astral, or rather astro-
mental, body, of theosophical literature), made of a finer
grade of matter than that which composes the physical
plane we know of, is the inner core. This forms the
individuality, the thread of continuity, the * present,' in
which the past and future, the before and after, of one
physical life-period of a human being are conjoined,
amidst the changes of his physical body and surround-
ings, The physical body itself has a certain ' form and
shape ' imposed upon it by this inner body ; which form.
roughly speaking, persists like an external thread of con-
tinuity, through the incessant changes of the material of
the body. This but illustrates the pseudo-infinite re-
petition of every principle in nature. The physical body
is sheath to the astral ; but in the physical body itself a
still further distinction is made between a grosser and a
finer, and the former, the grosser, portion becomes sheath
to an inner less gross, which becomes distinguished as a
linga-cjeha, 1 a ' type-body ', (or etheric double, in theoso-
phical literature) , a ,
s And even in the grosser ' physical body,' we may not improperly
say that the nervous system is the ' inner' and finer, and the rest
' outer* and coarser. Again, in the nervous system, the ' central ' por-
tion may be distinguished from the ' peripheral ' ; and so on, till we
come to a recent theory which holds that the nerves proper are not
really continuous threads, but consist of microscopic protoplasmic jelly-
like cells, enclosed within tubes, which cells, during the active waking
condition, stretch out on both sides and touch each other, thus becoming
one continuous thread, which undulates with the alternate jelhfication
and softening, or contracting and expanding, of these cells when they
are carrying afferent or efferent impulses ; sleep resulting when these
cells become fatigued, contract, and separate from each other.
28
434 PHYSICAL AND SUPERPHYSICAL [SC. OF
To put the matter in other words : Of the pseudo-
infinite variations of the Logion, due to the pseudo-jnfinite
variations of the 'this' contained in that logion, each
variation may be regarded as representing one life-course,
one line of consciousness. This one life-course, one line
of consciousness, taking the case of the average human
individual, is represented by the inner sukshma-sharira,
* subtle body', which contains, latent in itself, the whole
of the (to be unfolded actual) life of that individual, as
the seed contains the tree. As one single ' present,' it
includes all the time-divisions, past and future, of that
life within itself. Because of this fact, the jlva can
range in memory and expectation over the whole of this
one physical life ; ! to him the whole of it is in a manner
present at every moment of his life, because it is all pre-
sent in the sukshma-sharira which is the ensouling core of
his physical sheath and is himself. But his memory and
1 True, most of our experiences are forgotten beyond conscious
recall. But the experiments of hypnotists and investigation of ' the un-
conscious ' show that they are still ' present ' and can be recalled in
special circumstances. In this connection should be considered the
physiology of the brain. The Mahatma Letters and The Secret
Doctrine say that the material of the physical body is changed and
renewed entirely in every seven years. But some Professors of Physio-
logy and Anatomy have told me, on enquiry, that the cells of the brain
do not change, though they grow. The subject requires further investi-
gation. Any way, continuity of physical basis, in some way or other
(may by transference of impression from old to new cells) seems to be
needed for continuity of conscious memory, while awake in the physical
body. The ternaries of anabolism and katabolism within metabolism,
of integration and disintegration within preservation, of tidal flow and
ebb within a level, of maximum and minimum under an optimum, seem
to be at work continuously, in the body, as well as in the mind, in
various ways. It is obvious that the softer tissues, like the layers of the
skin, are changed and renewed quickly ; the harder ones, like deep-
seated ideas and feelings, slowly.
P., CH. XV] ENDLESS SPIRALS OF EVOLUTION 435
expectation cannot go beyond the limits of the present
life, because the individuality of the sfikshma-sharlra
does not extend over other physical births. If, however,
by development of mind, by persistent introspection and
metaphysical or even psycho-philosophical and abstract
thought, helped by yogic practices (which are only
scientifically systematised processes of education, of ex-
tension or development of special old or new faculties), a
jiva advances in evolution to the stage when he separates
* himself ' as much from the sukshma-sharira as from
the sthula-sharira or physical body, then the sukshma-
sharira loses, in and to him, its character of inner core ; it
becomes that jiva's normal seat or centre of ' waking *
consciousness, as the physical or sthula is now ; and be-
comes merged with the physical into the outer sheath ;
and another body, (now called the karana-sharira), made
of a still subtler grade of matter, takes the place of the
inner core, and becomes a new sukshma-sharira ranging
over many rebirths and compassing memory and ex-
pectation of them all. 1 This process is repeated ad
infinitum* in the endless spirals of evolution including
system within system. Such seems to be the metaphysic
1 Kfshpa says to Arjuna, GZJd, iv. 5, ' I remember all my past births ;
you do not*. See also the conversation, regarding their memories of
past births, between Jaigisbavya and Avatya ; Yoga-Bhashya, iii, 18.
2 3TrTC>f:, f^P^-Vibhti^-Mah&'N&rayana Upanishaj. We have
seen before, that the doctrine, that there are atoms within worlds and
worlds within atoms endlessly, is very familiar in Yoga-Vasishtha and
other works. For the specific statement that a param-anu, a ' super-
atom,' is also an 'organism/ a 'compound* of articulated parts, a
sanghata, as distinguished from a mere loose collection, a samuha, see
Yoga-Bhashya, iii, 44.
436 RECESSION OF THE IDEAL [SC. OF
of the facts stated in The Secret Doctrine * that, to the
Logos of our Solar System, all the planes of that system
are as the sub-planes of one plane. They would be to
Him, one outer real world ; his own inner, ideal, world
would be a grade beyond. It is like this : If there were
beings who had sense-experience of only solid matter, to
them liquid matter would be in the place of soul, spirit,
inner or ideal substance ; but if they should gradually
grow very familiar with water, and begin to have some
experience of gaseous matter, then solid and liquid would
become ranged as degrees or subdivisions of the outer
plane to them, and air would take the place of soul,
spirit, etc. ; as air grew familiar, radiant matter, or ether,
or whatever other name might be given to the next
degree of matter, would take its place as principle of
continuity 8 and support and unification, in actual life
and ia general estimation. Witness, in illustration of
one aspect of this fact, various theories of the earlier
1 Vol. v, pp. 424. et seq., Adyar edn.
1 Qevl-Bhdgavata speaks of the five tnaha-bhtyas serving assSfras,
threads, principles of continuity to one another and to the countless
forms within each.
Vayu Pnr&na I. iv.
' Born one from another, each preceding supports each succeeding
one. 1
*W W *i 3?^ ana* i $13 ^r, fensi g ^3 a?N: tfciT*
fitaW, sfa qraft f fa Wrt%3 ; Brhad Up.. III. vi.
' All this (solid land) is inter-woven with (and supported by) water.
But what is water supported by ? By Air. And that Air ? ... By Brahma
ultimately is everything supported '.
P., CH. XV] OPPOSITE ATTRIBUTES 437
Greek philosophers, who endeavoured to reduce the
universe to one single element, earth, water, fire, air, etc.,
successively ; and in illustration of another aspect thereof,
modern scientific theories with respect to ether.
Modern scientists have collected together and discussed
all the attributes assigned to this hypothetical ether, and
pointed out that they are in most instances exactly
opposite of those assigned to known kinds of matter.*
As a fact, the list of attributes thus given, e.g.,
continuity, unlimitedness, homogeneity, non-atomicity,
structurelessness, gravitationlessness, frictionlessness, etc.,
is not a list of attributes of any kind of matter or Mula-
prakrti, but of Pratyag-atma. But it always happens in
the history of evolution, that each subtler and more
pliable grade of matter, in its relation to the next denser
and more resistant, displays the characteristics which
Pratyag-atma generally displays towards Mula-prakrti,
viz., characteristics of being a source of existence
and support, and of supplying a basis of continuity, of
lubrication, whereby the resistant and separate are
brought into relation with each other with the least
possible friction, and are unified. It is worthy of remark in
passing that the Sarpskrt word sn6h a,* means lubricant
oil, or moisture, our water, as well as love, which is
Pratyag-atma in the desire-aspect, desire for unity, and
pre-eminently ' lubricates ' our human relations. We
1 See, for instance, A.E. Dolbear, The Machinery of the Universe,
p. 93, (Romance of Science Series).
438 CO-ORDINATION OF PLANES OF MATTER [SC. OF
may well entertain the supposition, therefore, that when
modern science, becoming more and more familiar with
radiant matter and protyle and ether, etc., shall have
discovered their real properties, they will all fall into
line with the kinds of matter now better known ; and
a new and hypothetical element will have to be assumed,
with these same characteristics of Pratyag-atma, to
explain the otherwise paradoxical behaviour of the
known kinds. Puranic and theosophical literature
speaks of two such elements, after ether or akasha, to be
discovered within the time-limits of our Manvantara,
which have been already referred to before, viz., mahat
or adi-tattva and buddhi or anupadaka-tattva. 1
Co-ordination of these pseudo-infinite planes of matter
then, is to be found in the fact that, wherever and when-
ever we take it, we find the World-Process as a limited
brahm-an(Ja, a world-system, small or large, which is a
tri-bhuvanam, a tri-lokl, a system of * three worlds ' or
layers or planes of matter. That is to say, every jiva,
wherever and whenever he lives, lives in a world-system
which to him has three factors : an outer or real world,
an inner or ideal world, and the all-embracing con-
sciousness which connects the two, and which, being
itself essentially and fully ever-present, is the basis of
1 P. 372 supra, f.n. If these are (as is said) sense-able, in the same
way as akasha, v&yu, etc., and will have their corresponding sensor and
motor organs, as akasha has ear and vocal (Skt. vale) cords ; vayu, skin
and feet ; agni, eyes and bands, then mahat-budghi, the psychological
principle or faculty, antah-karana or 'inner organ* of Sfinkbya, has
to be distinguished from them, for it has to underlie all senses , old
or new. See Pranava-vada.
P., CH. XV] WAKING UP ON HIGHER PLANES 439
every * present,' whatever stretch of time-space-motion
that lower present or ideal may include. In our system,
to average humanity, the outer world is the world of the
physical plane and sthula-sharira ; the inner, of the
astro-mental plane and sukshma-sharira ; the abstract
consciousness (the principles or outlines on which the
individual is constructed, the basic constituents of his
nature, the special aspect or mode of the One Conscious-
ness which that individual is intended to manifest, anger,
or love, or art, or philanthropy, etc., in pseudo-infinite
variety), of karana-sharira, the ' causal ' body, which
is the cause of the others; in a way corresponding
to that in which Absolute-Consciousness is cause
of all that occurs within it. When, by evolution and
opening up of the paths of individual consciousness
through layers of the sukshma-sharira (i.e., by the
* waking up ' of the individual on that plane, by
transfer to it of * the hot place* in his consciousness),
the latter and its material will become as much ' object '
to the consciousness as the physical body and its material
are now ; then karana-body will take the place of
sukshma-body, and abstract consciousness will retire to
a subtler plane of matter, which has been called
budcjhic, or maha-karana, or turlya 1 ; and then the
range of memory and expectation will extend beyond
the present life to past and future births, since the
karana-body (because of its subtler matter) has a more
extensive ' present,' and lasts through many physical
440 TWO SENSES OF THE SAME WORDS [SC. OF
births, even as the sukshma-sharira lasts through all
changes of the physical body in one birth. From the
standpoint of the karana-body, physical births-deaths
are as bright-dark fortnights, or even day-nights, of physi-
cal life would be to the sukshma-sharira. 1
We may now pass on to certain inferences from the
facts stated above. But before doing so it may be noted
as useful to bear in mind in systematising apparently
disjointed and otherwise inconsistent-seeming and confus-
ing statements in old Samskrt and theosophical literature
that the same words are employed, and for reasons
existing in the nature of things as shown above, to indi-
cate abstract general principles and types which have a
universal application, and also special and concrete facts
which are peculiar only to a particular locality or system.
Thus (a) atma, (6) buddhi, (c) manas these have
one universal sense, viz., (a) Self, (6) unifying Reason
or Universal Mind, which is but Self * holding
1 For ' practical ' purposes, works like Yoga-Vasishtha speak of
only two ' bodies, ' viz., adhi-bhautika (made up of maha-bhutas)
and ati-vahika (by or in which the jiva 4 passes from one
mood or body to another '). In Sufi terms, the two are jism-i-kaslf and
jism~i-latlf t or nafs-i-muqlm and nafs-i-j&ri; (see Essential Unity
of All Religions, Index). This latter would be ' core '-body, as the
former is ' crust '-body. For considerations, in terms of modern
science, supporting belief in the existence and the possibility of
development of such an 'inner body,' see Edward Carpenter's The
Drama of Love and Death. The possibility of such extraction of a
subtler and finer body from the denser, is evidenced by the even more
incredibly wonderful yet very familiar actuality of the caterpillar
chrysalis butterfly and larva pupa moth transformations. Theo-
sophical doctrines as to larger and larger reaches of subtler and subtler
bodies and planes, bud^hic, nirvSnic, etc., are illustrations of the
principles attempted to be expounded in the text.
More on the significance of the ' present ' will be found in
Pranava-v&da.
P., CH. XV] A COROLLARY 441
together ' the Many as dharma-megha, 1 web of life,
and network of laws, and (c) separative intelligence.
They are also occasionally used in theosophical literature
in another sense, viz., the three subtlest planes of matter
out of the seven of which our solar system is there said
to consist. When all the seven planes are taken as sub-
planes of one cosmic plane, these three may be regarded
as composing the inner core to the outer sheath made up
of the other four ; even as the three subtler sub-planes
of the physical plane supply the material for the ' inner f
etheric double, which pervades and holds together the outer
body composed of the four grosser sub-planes of physical
matter, viz., solid, liquid, gaseous, and etheric.
The necessary corollary from the above statements
is : Planes of matter which may be very different from
each other, which may be mutually uncognisable by>
and even as non-existent to, the jlvas ordinarily inhabit-
ing each, i.e., having sheaths and bodies made of, or
corresponding to, it, will always be seen from the stand-
point of a higher jiva, having a sufficiently extensive
consciousness, to be graded or related to each other in
some way or other. We can conceive of beings whose
bodies are made of air, and of others made of fire-flames.
These two sets of beings might even interpenetrate
without being conscious of each other. But a jiva, who
was familiar with both kinds of matter in all their forms,
; Yoga-siitra, i, 2, and iv, 29, 32 ; ' the cloud, m6gha, which
rains, mlhati, all cjharma and dharma-s, virtue, and laws of Nature,
and also functions and characteristic qualities of things ' ; see the present
writer's Yoga-Concordance-Dictionary .
442 INTERPENETRATING PLANES [SC. OF
would be able to distinguish between the two, and see
the gradation between the atoms composing the one
and the other kind of matter. A mosquito can walk
upon the surface of water; for all practical purposes,
the water is to it as hard and resistant as stone. It is
not so to the fish. The fish and the mosquito may not
be able to understand, the one how the other lives and
moves in water, and the other how the one can walk
upon the surface of it without being immersed. Man
can understand both things. Pseudo-infinite necessarily
are these diversities of consciousness ; and each plane
and each kind of matter, corresponding to each variety
of this diversity, is again pseudo-infinite in extent of
space, time, and motion, as already said. From the
narrow standpoint, which knows of only one, each may
seem to exclude even the possibility of others ; so that
if one said that there were living beings whose bodies
were composed of subtler matter, that our earth was
thronged with them so that our bodies and theirs were
passing through each other very often, and in entire
unconsciousness of each other's existence, the statement
would ordinarily either not be believed, as involving a
breach of geometrical axioms, or if believed, would be
regarded as disproving those axioms. But to a higher
and broader outlook, both kinds of matter and their
corresponding lines of consciousness fall into their proper
places ; and the graded relations, to each other, of these
planes of matter, by interpenetration, without violation
of any mathematical laws, also becomes apparent.
P., CH. XV] NO FOURTH DIMENSION 443
Another connected corollary seems to be that, by
metaphysical deduction, the so-called fourth and fifth
and higher dimensions of space can really not be any-
thing differing in kind from the known three dimensions.*
These three dimensions themselves, length, breadth and
depth, are but varieties of the one fact of co-existence
which is the essential and the whole significance of
space. Three straight lines intersecting each other at
right angles at one central point give us these three
dimensions. B.ut a million, a billion, a pseudo-infinite
number, of such triplets of lines can intersect each
other at the same central point ; that is to say, a pseudo-
infinite number of single straight lines can intersect each
other, at that point, at angles of all possible degrees ;
and we can therefore justifiably speak of a pseudo-infinite
number of dimensions of space. In any other sense, all
so-called new dimensions resolve themselves into cases
of interpenetration in various ways ; and interpenetration
itself, it is clear, is but the co-existence of atoms, or mole-
cules, or component particles, in special positions towards
each other. The case would be similar with dimensions
and divisions of time and motion.
The question of how the consciousness of a jlva
expands, so as to embrace more and more planes of
1 The Secret Doctrine, I, 29S-296, and The Mahatma
Letters, p. 404, clearly repudiate the notion o! any fourth,
fifth* etc., dimension of space, other than the three, length,
breadth, depth. They explain that ' interpenetration ' has
been mistaken for a new * dimension '.
444 HIGHER INCLUDES LOWER CONSCIOUSNESS [SC. OF
matter, is one of general evolution, or of practical yoga
when an endvavour is made to accomplish this
deliberately.
The nature itself of the process of expansion of
consciousness is nothing peculiarly mysterious. All
education is such expansion ; and yoga is specialised
education. A jlva takes up a new subject of study, a
new line of livelihood, a new department of life and mode
of existence, and forthwith a new 'world is opened to him,
and his consciousness flows out into, becomes co-extensive
with, takes in and assimilates, that new world. Every
sense, ear, eye, nose, is a window into a world of its own.
In another aspect of 'expansion', viz., of (comparatively)
simultaneous communion, we find other illustrations.
Take the case of an ordinary government. The consci-
ousness of an officer in charge of the police-administration
of a sub-district is coextensive with the police-affairs of
that district ; that of another in charge of its revenue-
administration is similarly co-extensive with its revenue-
affairs ; and so with a number of other departments
of administration, medical, educational, arboricultural,
commercial, municipal, side by side, in the same sub-
district. But there are larger districts made up of
numbers of these sub-districts, and still larger divisions
of country made up of numbers of these districts ; and
at each stage there are administrative officers in charge
of each department, whose consciousness may be said to
include the consciousnesses of their subordinates in that
department, exclude those of their compeers, and be in
P., CH. XV] ILLUSTRATIONS 445
turn included in those of their superiors. The more
complicated the machinery of the government, the
better the illustration will be, of inclusions, exclusions,
partial or complete coincidences, and overlappings and
communions of consciousness. At last we come to the
head of the government, whose consciousness may be
said to include the consciousnesses, whose knowledge and
power include the knowledges and powers, of all the
public servants of the land, whose consciousness is so
expanded as to enable him to be in touch with them all
and feel and act through them all constantly. An officer
promoted through the grades of such an administration
would clearly pass through expansions of consciousness.
A more common illustration, which may appear to show
out the so-called immediacy of consciousness better, is
chat of friends and relatives. Two friends may be so
intimate with each other, husband and wife, and members
of a joint family, may love and be in rapport with each
other so much, that they have a ' common life,' a ' com-
mon feeling,' a ' common consciousness V But it should
1 Members of a bench of judges, arriving at a concurrent
judgment ; disputants coming to an agreement, after examin-
ing all the pros and cons ; a classful of students, following
with intelligent assent, a mathmatical demonstration by a
professor ; all these are illustrations of coincidence of con-
sciousness ; so too, a great public meeting adopting a resolu-
tion unanimously. A simple and effectively intelligible way
of putting the idea is this : The * We '-consciousness includes,
synthesises, coincides with, unifies, all the ' I-, You-, He-,
She-, It-consciousnesses which that ' We '-consciousness may
stretch itself over, and cover, and embrace. * We ' includes
all ' thou-s ', ' you-s ', ' he-s ', ' she-s ', ' it-s ', ' they-s ' ; and
446 ANALOGIES IN DAILY LIFE [SC. OF
be borne in mind that, strictly speaking, there is no more
immediacy in the one case than in the other, but only
quicker cognition. Consciousness of the particular, the
limited, working unavoidably, through an upadhi, ' sheath ',
4 garment f , * tenement ', instrument,' ' vehicle ', neces-
sarily deals with time as with space ; and the time-
element is always a definite element, however infinitesimal
it may be in any given case. The word ' immediate '
in such cases has only a comparative significance, as is
apparent from the fact that the time of transmission of
a sensation, from the end of a nerve to the seat of
consciousness, has been distinctly and definitely calculated
in the case of living organisms ; and differs with the
organisms; it is much longer in a whale than in a
human.
Such expansion of consciousness, then, is not in its
nature more recondite than any other item in the World-
Process, but a thing of daily and hourly occurrence. In
terms of metaphysic, it is the coming of an individual
self into relation with a larger and larger not-self. The
processes of yoga are no more and no less methods of
e-duc-ation using the word in its true significance of
developing, ' forth-leading ', opening up and orienting, of
faculties already existent but weak or latent than the
processes followed in the million schools and colleges of
modern life, for developing the physical and mental
it does so in such a way that every, individual, included
therein, retains his, her, its, separate individuality, while
feeling identity with the whole.
P>, CH. XV] TWO KINDS OF MOKSHA 447
powers of children and youth ; only they are (probably)
more systematic, better thought out, based on deeper
knowledge of psychology and metaphysic. Every act
of attention, of concentration, of regulation and balancing,
of deliberately ' joining ' and directing the self to an
object, or to itself, of con-y^g-ating it to, or en-gag-ing
it in, anything, is (jnana- or kriya-) yoga (respectively,
according as the chitta, mind, is made receptive or pro-
jective) ; and means some development of the individual
consciousness.
NOTE: Two kinds of moksha, liber-ation, de-liver -
ance, quitting, letting go, e-mancip-ation, un-binding, (from
much, 'to un-tie, re-lease ') are indicated in the old books.
(1) One is the ' metaphysical ', moksha proper, ' radical deli-
verance ', once for all, from all and ultimate doubt of Immort-
ality, doubt of Utter and Perfect Self-dependence; from fear
of pain and death, fear of subjection-to-another, of being at
the Mercy-of-Another. It is a change of the attitude of the
chitta, mind ; change of its outlook upon Life and World-Pro-
cess. One of the Masters (the real Founders of the Theosophical
Society) is reported to have said, on some occasion, ' Moksha
is not a change of conditions ' (plural) ' but of condition '
(singular). The person, whose mind undergoes this change of
* condition,' becomes Self-sure ; and instead of always thinking
of, clinging to, working for, the part, the limited, i.e., his indi-
vidualistic egoistic self, he turns to, or rather into, the Whole;
and persistently knows, desires (the welfare of), and works
4 for ', or rather ' as, the whole, the unlimited Universal Self.
(2) The other may be called ' technical ' moksha.
Children released from school, prisoners let out from jail,
public servants ' off ' duty, wage-workers set free after work-
hours all these experience moksha in the technical sense, even
on the physical plane, in daily life. Any ' freeing ' from any
bonds, any ties, is a moksha. Receiving the ' freedom ' of a
city, in England, now a formal honor, seems to have meant,
448 METAPHYSICAL AND SUPERPHYSICAL [SC. OP
originally, that the person honored was really ' free ' to enter
into any house of that city and be welcomed as a guest, as a
matter of right ; he was * freed ' from the ordinary limitations
and restrictions to which strangers are subject. (Compare
Chhandogya Up., VII, xxv, 2) ' He who has such Self -Know-
ledge becomes Sva-rat, Self -governed ; . . . He can pass into
any world and all worlds at will ' (in and by ' imagination ',
and then in corresponding * reality '). ' Super-physically ',
with the achievement, siddhi, (from s idh,sddh, to effect
completely, accomplish, suc-ceed), of each new extension of
faculty, each new sense, the person becomes ' free ' o/and in
the corresponding new world, free to range in it at will. Also,
per contra, if he becomes tired of any kind of experience, any
world (of science, art, fairies, nymphs, gods, titans, comedies,
tragedies, heavens, hells), and abandons it, then too he be-
comes * free ', but free from it ; he transcends it, rises above
it (aty-etO, by negation ; (see quotation from Charaka, p. 131,
supra). In this sense, while ' metaphysical moksha ' is of
one kind only, the other, ' technical or superphysical moksha *
may be of countless kinds ; for there must be as many kinds
of freedom as there are, or may be, of bondage ; thus,
books of medicine speak of a person ' freed from fever, ' as
jvara-mukta.
All this implies, over again, that 'laws * are the same, for
physical as well as super-physical planes, worlds, conditions ;
and thereby re-inforces the Law of Analogy or Corres-
pondences.
Yoga~Bhashya t ii. 27, speaks of two kinds of v i
m u k t i i (the word is here used as a synonym for mukti or
moksha, but is seldom employed in this sense). The com-
mentary, on this and the preceding aphorism, says in effect :
The only cure for a-vidya, Primal Error (' I am this-body f )
is viveka, discrimination, between Purusha, 'I', and
sa^tva (the finest attribute of Prakrti, here standing for
the whole of Prakrti, 1 , * This ', ' Not- 1 '. This discrimination
wavers, falters, flicker?, does not burn with a steady flame.
To make it steady, firm, unshakable, it has to be developed
and strengthened through seven stages: (1) Thar which has
to be given up, viz., ' this '-body, to which the mind clings, is
P., CH. XV] SEVEN STAGES TO MOKSHA 449
recognised as what ought not to be clung to ; (2) the causes
which have produced the clinging are attenuated, (the causes
being, as stated in Yoga-Sutra, ii, 3, the series of five, a-vidya-
asmita, raga, dvesha, abhi-nivesha, error or ne-science,
egoism, like, dislike, and 'ego-complex 1 , i.e., obstinate
separative individualism ; of which five and the correspond-
ing opposites, the whole World-Process is product and
illustration) ; (3) the dropping away of them is bi ought
about by appropriate mind-discipline, and accomplished
more and more fully in and by samadhi-meditation ; (4)
it is realised that discrimination (as above) is the only
means of the utter subsidence of the causes. These four
constitute kflryS vt-mukji, 'freedom which has to be
made ', achieved, by practice. The remaining three stages
constitute chit^a vi- mukti, f freeing, or freedom, or
dissolution, of the mind ' ; (5) the momentum, desire-force, of
buddhi, mind, is exhausted . there is no craving left for
separative individualised existence ; (6) the gufla-s, sattva-
rajas-tamas, attributes of mind or Prakyti, like displaced
boulders tumbling from a mountain-top, and rushing unstay-
ably down to the bottom, merge back into their primal source
and disappear ; (7) Purusha, Self, (individual self which has
become Universal Self by the dropping away of all limiting
and individualising upadhi-sheath and entanglements) remains
fixed in Its own Sole-ness, Kvala-ta or Kaivalyam.
11 The dewdrop slips into the Shining Sea ".
Yoga Vasishtha also enumerates seven steps or stages,
in three separate places ; each list varies a little, in names
and order, but not in substance. The places are Bk. 3, ch. 118,
verses 3-16; Bk. 6, PUrv-ardha, ch. 120, verses 1-9; and
ch. 126, verses 70-73. Buddhist, SUfi, and other schools of
Yoga, have, each, their own special lists of steps, practices,
disciplines.
In between the first stage and the seventh, come all the
phases of ' life abounding ', * fuller life ' of the Right Hand
Path of White Magic, fuller life of " terrible toil and profound
sadness, but also a great and ever-increasing delight " (Light
on the Path); gradual progress onthenivrtti-marga,
Path of Renunciation and Ascent, by ' re-vers-ion * to more and
29
450 SAME TROUPE OF ACTORS THROUGHOUT [SC. OF
more subtle bodies and planes, through which the jiva had
come down, grade by grade, on the Path of Pursuit and Des-
cent, pr a-vrtt i-m arga. The Secret Docrine, V, 300,
says :
" Mankind, from the first down to the last, or seventh
Race, is composed of one and the same company of actors,
who have descended from higher spheres to perform
their artistic tour on this our planet, Earth. Starting as pure
spirits on our downward journey around the world, with
the knowledge now feebly echoed in the occult doctrines
inherent in us, cyclic law brings us down to the reversed
apex of Matter, which is lost down here on earth, and the
bottom of which we have already struck; and then, the
same law of spiritual gravity will make us slowly ascend
to still higher, still purer, spheres, viz., those we started
from/' '
1 Pp. 294-296 of H.P.B.'s From the Caves and Jungles
of Hindustan should be carefully read as a continuation of
the above extract from her Secret Doctrine, The following
sentence on p. 296 indicates that Spirit, in its descent into
Matter, comes right down into the mineral stage (atom) and
then reascends : ' With every new Maha-Yuga (great cycle)
the Deva separates from that which is eternal, attracted by
existence in objective existence, like a drop of water first
drawn up by the Sun, then starting again downwards, passing
from one region to another, and returning at last to the dirt of
our planet. Then having dwelt there while a small cycle
lasted, it proceeds again upwards on the other side of the
circle." Pp. 293-294 say useful things about spiritualistic
phenomena. The whole confirms belief in personal im-
mortality and Reincarnation.
On these two subjects, The Mahatma Letters throw
much light ; read the pages referred to in its Index against
4 Death f and ' Reincarnation ; pp. 170-171 give some specially
beautiful injunctions for those who watch by a death-bed;
these injunctions indicate that the departing soul gathers out
of its past, the most important material with which it will
start its next re-incarnation. H.P.B/s Secret Doctrine and
P., CH. XVj THE FINER SPIRITUALISM 451
In other words, out of countless Dhyan Chohans, jivas,
d6vas-asuras, spiritual intelligences or individuals, a great host
Ists Unveiled have also helpful information on the subject ;
see their Index-references against ' Reincarnation '.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is well known as the creator of
the famous detective ' Sherlock Holmes '. He was also a very
versatile writer on many subjects, historical novels, romances,
short stories, tragic and comic. A very important book by
him, on a very serious subject, entitled The Edge of the
Unknown, came into my hands only in September, 1947,
(while these pages were passing through the press). It deals
with the subject and the literature of spiritualistic phenomena
from their beginnings, a little before the middle of the last
century, till the year of its publication, 1930 ; recounts
the author's own personal experiences with clairvoyants,
clairaudients, levitators in broad daylight, and mediums of
many sorts, and his very careful investigations and testings ;
and also records the conversions of several leading scientists,
journalists, and clergymen, who were formerly unbelievers.
Of course the views of such believers as Sir William
Barratt (founder of the Psychical Research Society), Sir
Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, all famous scientists, are
referred to. Bulwer Lytton, the famous novelist, is described
as one of the moral cowards " who admitted the facts in
private and stood aloof in public " (p. 248) as regards
D. D. Home's phenomena ; though himself the author of those
* Magic '-novels, Zanoni (referred to in The Mahatma
Letters with some commendation) and A Strange Story.
Sir A. C. Doyle says that all the finer spirits declared,
through their mediums, that the sole purpose, for which
they were endeavouring to communicate with the earth-world,
was to convince mankind of the certainty, the fact and truth,
of personal immortality, and thereby bring great solace and
peace of mind to all, as regards the fate of their departed dear
ones, and also their own future ; also to show to mankind that
the Supreme Power at the heart of the Universe was essen-
tially Just, and that there were different kinds of purgatories
for sinners of different degrees, and also heavens for the
virtuous similarly ; also that reincarnation was a fact. And
452 PERSONAL GOD AND IMPERSONAL GOD [SC. OF
decided (by the Free- Will of Inner Necessity) to become ' a
troupe of actors ' and gradually c descend ' to the state and stage
of Humanity, and then * re-ascend f , equally gradually, to the
primal state of spiritual intelligences, dvas-asuras. For
fuller understanding of this, one should read up the references
in the S.D. Index under * Dhyan Chohans,' ' Dhyanis,' ' Dhyani-.
Buddhas,' etc. In Skt. terms, P i t T-s, ' fathers,' 'ancestors/ are
born as ' p u t r a - s ', ' sons ' ; i.e., the same old souls are
born over and over again, in new bcdies, generation after
generation. One point may be specially noted here. S. D., V,
374, says: " Vajra-dhara or Vajra-sattva is the Regent or
President (chief) of all the Dhyan Chohans or Dhyani
Buddhas, he is the highest, the Supreme Buddha ; personal yet
never manifested objectively ". In this sentence may be seen
the reconciliation of belief in a Personal God (of a particular
and limited world, as in a king or emperor or president or other
ruler of a State), and non-belief in an extra-cosniiccd and
Universal but yet Personal God of the whole Beginningless
and Endless World-Process ; see pp. 170-172, supra. In The
Mahatma Letters, all notion of such an extra-cosmical, uni-
versal, * personal ' god, is strongly repudiated (pp. 52-59).
We have seen above that moksha-freedotn has as many
kinds, technically, as bondage. Self, having, of It-Self, ' put
aside * (' forgotten ') Its Freedom, and put on countless bonds
of finite forms, modes, moods, experiences ; is everlastingly
engaged in the task of regaining Its freedom ; freedom from
this want, that slavery, this pain, that restriction, this limita-
tion, that oppression, this ignorance, that powerlessness
political, economic, domestic, social, individual, biological,,
psychological, racial, national, etc. ; freedom from inability to
fly at will to planets and stars, to see what is happening, or
has happened, or will happen, on any of them ; and so forth.
there is little doubt that the faith of mankind at large has been
revived on a large scale, by means of spiritualistic pheno-
mena, as also in various other ways, directly and indirectly,
in personal immortality and reincarnation. The whole book is
well worth reading and pondering over by Theosophists. Also
The Wanderings of a spiritualist (1921) by the same author*
P., CH. XV] THREE KINDS OF YOGA 453
For practical purposes, however, a few of the more im-
portant kinds or stages of moksha are specified by different
schools or systems of jnana-knowledge or bhakti-devotion,
from their own respective standpoints. A yoga-method of
preponderant karma-action is also recognised, viz. y the karma-
yoga and karma-sannyasa-yoga expounded in Chs. iii and v of
Gltn. But it is generally agreed that it is subsidiary ; while
the yogas of predominant bhakti or of predominant jnana are
more direct means to moksha ; the former, chiefly to the
special and super-physical kinds ; the latter, mainly to the
metaphysical. Pranava-Vada (see its Index-references under
4 moksha ') gives helpful information. The main idea to bear
in mind, explaining the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar, is
that these many kinds of moksha, * free choice ', are like the
many vocations and careers from which any one may be
selected, according to his taste and temperament, by a person,
who has completed a good general education. But, while the
several vocations may be regarded as of equal importance, yet
there is also a grading and ranking among the persons
pursuing them. Thus Rshis, Maha-Rshis, Brahma-Rshis,
D6va-Rshis, Parama-Rshis ; Bodhi-sattvas, Buddhas, Maha-
Buddhas, Masters or Chohans of ' seven rays ', Pratyt'ka-
Chohans ; Thrones, Principalities, Powers ; Auliya, Abdal,
Abrar, Ghausas or Qutubs (in Vedic, Buddhist, Christian,
Muslim, schemes), have different functions as well as grades
and ranks in the Invisible Spiritual Government.
Karma-yoga is the preliminary step, bhakti-yoga the
next, jnana-yoga, the last ; after achieving jnana, the soul
pursues all three conjointly, with a new vision and a new
purpose.
By bhakti-devotion, the soul attains the following kinds
of moksha, step by step. Chhandogya 2. 20. 2 ; Mukti (1. 23) ;
and other Upanishats, mention them : (l) Sal ok y a, life in
the 1 o k a, world, of the loved and worshipped deity ;
(2) S a m ! p y a, " nearness ' to him or her ; (3) S a r s h t i,
holding of similar fshti-s, powers and possessions, (4)
Sarupya, sameness of rupa, appearance, with him or
her ; (5) S a y u j y a, complete identification with, mergence
into, him or her. The worshipped object may be any one of
454 " LIVE IN THE ETERNAL " [SC. OF
the great gods or goddesses. The several grades of g a a a-s,,
retinue, of Shiva ; p a r s h a d a-s, companions of Vishnu ;
T s h i-s, court-iers, of Brahma ; s a k h i-s, comrades," of
P6vi ; a n u-c h a r a-s, followers, of other deities ; are ex-
amples. Correspondences to all these ' super-physical ' states-
will be readily seen in human relations in earth-life. Theo-
sophical tradition as to the souls of Chaldean votaries of
various stars and planets going away to them, at special
astronomical conjunctions, by means of special rites and
ceremonies also illustrates the same idea.
The difference between such moksha-s and states of
svarga or PSvachan or SukhavatI, heaven, may be regarded as
one of degree of comparative voluntartness and conscious
control in the former, and the opposite in the latter ; like the
differences of wakefulness and reverie.
As regards ' Metaphysical emancipation from all tetters
of the soul, and gain of Self-dependence ', it should be noted
that ' Realisation of the Reality, the Real, the Self ', is not
merely intellectual, nor merely emotional, nor merely actionai
(physical, volitional), nor merely intuitionalbut is all these
at once. A person learning to swim, has one supreme moment,,
when the experience comes to him of ' Sink or Swim ', and
ends in 'Swim, and not Sink*. The travail, the soul -and-
body-rending of the spiritual experience of ' Die, clinging to
the Finite body, or Live, clinging to the Infinite I ', is similar.
As Light on the Path describes it, solemnly, beautifully, the
lower nature weeps, the heart cries, the lower self frenziedly
strives to preserve its separateness ; but it has to be trans-
formed, transmuted, into the Higher non-separative all-
inclusive Self : " Seek in the heart the source of evil and
expunge it. He who will enter upon the Path must tear this
thing out of his heart. And then the heart will bleed, and
the whole life of the man seem to be utterly dissolved. This
ordeal must be endured . . . Fasten the energies of your soul
upon the task. Live neither in the present, nor the future,
but in the Eternal. This giant weed cannot flower there."
The illumination, the transfiguration, comes in different ways
to different souls. In some, the intellectual aspect is pre-
dominant rshis, sages, seers; in others, the emotional
P..CH. XV] SOME MORE TEXTS 455
munis, saints ; in others, the actional hatha-yogis, ritualists.
The Ultimate Goal is the same for all.
Following quotations supply further explanations and
illustrations of the principles indicated above.*
: f^f-Rf fcJ^TFirH I Yoga-sty, i. 19.
: 5H, 3^%: %3?4 I ii, 25.
iqicf 4-w^N ^ i "i, 49.
iii, 50.
i iii, 55.
: i w f 29.
7Mf ., iv, 34.
-f^^T^T: ;
3
i 3 fcilifcf
RT C 9 BI^3^F 51 ft^fcl I Vayu-Purana, quoted in
Vachaspati's Tffed on Yoga-bkashya, i, 19.
T: IcW: PjpfT: I Fd^^-^-. Purvarcjha,
Ch. 57, and Mafrya-P.. Ch. 143.
: ^ ^ %<?, qai^r i^r ^^^TJTT e55t^i grffaf
ChhAndogya, 2.20.2.
ipr
55Ss^T, ST^ lp WTO
456 SOME MORE TEXTS [SC. OF
l^ff *nfcf 3Kfaq I Muktika Up., i, 15-43.
Bhavishya-Purana, III, Khapda iv t Ck. 7.
mi?:
: i B^^. xi. xx.
*rt i
% I, 'I^OT
V&yu-Pur&na t . Parva,, Ch. vii.
p., CH. xv] KAIVALYA-AL(L-) ONENESS 457
ftsfri
M&dhyamika Su^ra, Ch, 25, verses 3 and 9.
The substance of the above quotations is this: * Kaivalya,
Kevala-ta, soleness, soli-tude, L-one-li-ness, On-(e)-li-ness, is
the final transcendental metaphysical moksha. I-On-(e)-ly-
am and-None-Else. All-is-I, I-am-All;not-an(y)-Other. (Leave
me Al-one !, the harrassed person cries !) Dis-junction of
a-vidya (the Error, I-am-this) from I is Kaivalya. The soul
that has become sure of the difference, opposition, mutual-
other-ness, of Self and Nature (Mot-Self, Matter, This, with its
gunas, sattva, etc.) grasps all (i.e., the whole of This) by (one
comprehensive act of Thought, and therefore rises superior
to all. (See quotation from Charaka, p. 131, supra ; what I
really do not care for, what I take no interest in, what I have
have cut off from myself that has no power over my mind,
cannot influence me in any way ; I am superior to his, her, or
its guiles and wiles and witcheries). Then that soul's condi-
tion is the one called Dharma-megha Samadhi, meditation in
which the Dharma-s, laws of Nature, rain down (megha,
mehati) upon the passion-less error-free truth-seeing mind ;
then the facts and laws of the World-Process appear fully
and clearly to the meditator. When the soul loses its interest
in and is tired of even such contemplation and enumeration of
Nature's secrets, pra-san-khyane api a-kusidasya ; then it
retires into Kaivalya. When sattva becomes equal in purity
to Self, it hierges into the latter, (Nature dis-appears into Self,
in pralaya-sleep), and Kaivalya remains. When guna-s,
Nature's triple attributes, have no momentum left, nothing left
to do, no unexhausted unfulfilled desire, no object to strive fc>r,
then they dissolve and vanish, and Kaivalya remains, i.e.,
the Principle of Consciousness, established in It-Self. 1
Souls which still cling to the finest super-subtle aspects
of nature, attain to the condition of vi-deha-s, bodiless ones,
and prakrt i-laya-s, dissolved into Nature (This); (or the
state of bodiless beings who have become dissolved into
Prakrti- Nature) ; and they enjoy this condition for long eons
(though there is no time-marker in those conditions ; (vide
Mahatma Letters, reDeva-chan, and Avlchi, pp. 194-197).
458 JlVAN-MUKTl AND VIpfcHA-MUKTl [SC. OF
Buddhist books also mention these. Pnranas amplify details.
It accord with their respective aspirations, souls merge into
(a) various cosmic or systemic indriyas, senses, of the systemic
Ishvara (corresponding to various deva-s, rshi-s, etc.) ; or
(b) into the systemic b h u t a-s or t a J t v a-s, elements ; or (c)
into the principle of aham-kara, egoism, mere pure ' I am ' ;
or (d) into the principle of mahat-buddhi, universal mind ; or
(e) into the principle of Avyakta-Mula-Prakrti ; or attain other
states. (Artists of a high order, painters, sculptors, musicians,
perfumers, inventors of delicious perfumes, gustators, creators
of exquisite tastes, tactators, or palpators, devisers of delight-
ful touches, as of silks, velvets, plushes, gossamers, zephyrs,
cool or warm and limpid waters, soft emulsive oils and
unguents such would be candidates for the technical moksha
of incjriya-chintakas, sense-contemplators ; great scientists,
for that of bhuta-chintakas ; abstract introverts or, lather,
introspectors, of abhi-manika-s or ahamkara-chintakas , pro-
found comprehensive thinkers or philosopheis, of buddhi-
chintakas ; meditators on the unmanifest, of Avyakta-
chintakas). The state of (a) lasts for ten manvantaras ;
of each succeeding one, ten times longer than the preceding.
(These figures are scarcely to be taken as precise ! They
generally imply that the more subtle is the longer-lasting)*
When the attributeless Nirguna Purusha is reached, all
measure of Time disappears '.
* The states of various gods are attained by appropriate
yajiia-s (mystery sacrifices, mystic rituals, etc, ; % of Virat (a
deity below Brahma), by renunciation of the fruit of all
actions ; of mergence into Prakrti, by vai-ragya, revulsion
from the world ; of Kaivalya, by knowledge. These are the
fiv% gati-s, goings, courses, ways, that lie before the aspiring
soul.
4 Dwelling in the world of the worshipped deity is known
as salokya-muk^i ; attaining general resemblance to him (in
appearance, in way of living, wearing his uni-form, so to say),
is sa-rupya ; being entrusted with some of his powers and
possessions (as a public servant is, with a king's), is sarshti ;
being near him, (as a member of a king's entourage or per-
sonal staff), is samipya ; being identified with him, con-join-ed
P., CH. XV] OTHER KINDS OF MOKSHA 459
with him, (able to take his place and act for him, on occasion,,
as queen or son), is sayujya '.
' While the physical body lasts, a soul that has achieved
(metaphysical) moksha, is called jivan-mukta ; when the body
falls away, it becomes vid6ha-mukta, which is the same as-
kaivalya-mukta.'
c Salokya is obtained by tapas-asceticism ; samipya, by
bhakti -devotion ; sarupya (and sarshti), by dhyana-meditation ;
sayujya, by jnana-knowledge. Each succeeding one of these
is twice as blissful as the preceding. Moksha into deva-s
comes to an end, soon or late ; usually at the end of the
Manvantara. Im-mortality,a-mrta-tva, technically means con-
scious existence or life (in a superphysical subtle body, till the
pralaya-dissolution-chaos of the elements, a-bhuta-samplava. r
' There are three Paths of (a) Karma, way of works ;
(b) bhakti, way of devotion ; (c) jnana, way of knowledge ; in
other words, energism, pietism, gnosticism. The first is for
those who are not yet tired of the world ; they should continue
to perform all right-and-due acts till fatigue begins to come
upon their mind. The second is for those who are not too
strongly attached to the world, not yet detached from it ; and
have generally heard of me, the Self of all, and begun to
aspire for a higher life (of fine feelings and fine artistic
thoughts and ideas ) ; the third is for those who are surfeited
with the world, and long to cease from its restlessness, and
find repeal and peace ! '
' Those who worship the devas, go to them. They who-
worship Me, the Self, the God'in all and o/all, they come to
Me. 1 (Gitci).
' That which is causeless, is not believed or arrived at by
gradual steps and stages, (but flashes forth all at once), is
never destroyed, never cut short, nor is ever-lasting (in time),
has no end and no beginning, (but Is, once for all, eternally)
that is Nirvana. This corn-motion, this restless going-and-
coming, which, believed in and en-dur-ed (as taking place in
dura-tion), time, is Samsara, World -Process ; this same, not
believed in, not accepted, (as true, but seen at Illusion, as
460 PERSONAL & IMPERSONAL IMMORTALITY [SC. OF
Mind's Imaginary Creation), is Nirvana.' (Buddhist Madhya-
mika Karika).
" The insan-ul-kamil, perfect man, is a man who has
fully realised his essential oneness with the Divine Being in
whose likeness he is made . . . An ecstatic feeling of one-
ness with God constitutes the wall, (singular of aultya,
saints). He unites the One and the Many, so that the
universe depends on him for its continued existence/' (Here,
the singular he is obviously to be understood as standing for
a numerous class of souls, in the same way as when one may
say that the atoll owes its existence to the coral insect,
or that the color of the Red Sea is due to a microscopic
plant). " He brings relief to the distressed, health to the
sick, children to the childless, food to the famis'hed, spiritual
guidance to those who entrust their souls^o his care, blessing
to all who invoke Allah in his name " ;' Nicholson, Studies
in Islamic Mysticism, p. 78.
Jalal-ud-din Rumi, chief of Persian Sufis, says:
Kulle shayin halikun juz Wajh-i-tJ.
Gar na-1 dar Wajh-i-0, hasti ma ju !
' All things are mortal save the Face of God.
If thou hast found no place within that Face,
Then hope not thou for Immortality ! '
Face, here, means Being, the Being of th^ Eternal
Self. The secret of preserving personal immortality (of the
technical kinds) is indicated in these lines, entirely in accord
with the theosophical view. If a soul deliberately fixes in its
memory, attaches to its higher manas, the upper half of the fifth
principle, any great incidents, great loves, and other noble
emotions, in their settings, great devotion to a great deity, and
thus fixes, shapes and crystallises, conglomerates, a particular
personality or individuality or ' ego-complex ', purposefully
creates a centre of individuality, and attaches that strongly
to its realization of the Eternal Self ; then the Immortality
of the latter is reflected on to the former also. V6(JanJa
tradition is the same ; the higher associations and memories
of the charama-d6ha, 'the last physical body 1 , may,
P., CH. XV] EXPERIENCE IN MOKSHA 461
at the will of the liberated soul, be carried into the liberated
condition. The ' last body ' here is the same as the ' a n -
aga m ! ' of Buddhism ; it is the body in which Self is seen
and realised ; after the falling away of which, there is no
Wfi-conscious rebirth, karma having been exhausted, ' burnt
up by Jnana ' (Glta) ; whatever birth there is, afterwards, of
that jiva-soul, is conscious, deliberately chosen, for some
particular service of the world.
Yoga-Vasishtha (ill, ix) gives a fine description, first of
the jivan-mukta, (some of the verses occur in Glta also) ; and
then of the videha-mukta, thus : ' When the body of the
jivan-mukta falls away under the touch of time, he enters
into the videha condition. As space he holds the stars within
himself ; he blazes as the sun ; he blows as the breezes ; as
the earth he bears the mountains, the foiests, the races of
men and animals ; *he bears fruit in the trees, he flowers in
the creepers, he flows as the rivers, he surges against the
shores of the earth as the mountainous billows of the ocean ;
he rains life-sap into the vegetable kingdom as the moonlight ;
he kills out life as the hala-hala venom : he illumines the
heavens as light, and merges them in gloom as darkness ; he
lives, wakes, sleeps, sorrows and rejoices, as the minds of
all ; he is each atom and all stars at once ; indeed he is now
all time, all space, and all their moving contents ! . . . But if
the videha-mukta becomes thus identical with the World-
Process, is that deliverance, or is it but a deeper immersion in
the welter of illusion-maya ? ... It would be such deeper
sinking were it not accompanied by the consciousness that
the illusion is illusion, that there is No Other-than-I, that
Brahma is An- Any?..!.' In the last statement is probably
conveyed the distinction between the videha and prakrti-laya
of Yoga-sutra on the one hand, and the kaivalya of Yoga or
videha of Vedanta on the other.
The ancient tradition of Upanishats and Yoga-Vasishtha
is that when the soul turns from the finite, ethically, emo-
tionally, and intellectually, it necessarily finds the Infinite and
attains moksha ; that, thereafter, the individual consciousness
turns more and more into the cosmic consciousness, that jiiana-
vairagya-bhakti are but the inseparably correlated aspects of
462 FREEDOM FROM EGOISM [SC. OF
ach other, and grow towards perfection side by side. As said
in Bhagavata,
: \
* Devotion to, and vision of the Supreme Self, and turning
away from all Else these three are simultaneous/ And in
9 Yoga-bhashya (i, 16).
' The highest degree and fullness of knowledge is com-
plete vai-ragya '.
That this tradition has never died and is living still may
be indicated by the following renderings of songs in Hindi
and Urdu, the first by Kabir, and the two others by recent
Sufi poets. All mystic literatures of all religions, Vedanta,
Tasaw-wuf, Gnosticism, Qabbala, etc., are on the same lines.
But before recording those renderings of mystic songs,
attention may be called to a very serious danger of terrible
misunderstanding which lurks under the word Kaivalya,
4 Solitude ', ' Oneness ', * Soleness '. It seems to be the last
wile of the Maya of the ' lower ego ', which would live on by
masquerading as the ' Higher Universal Ego ' : ' I will have
moksha for myself ; why should I care for others '. But
M o k s h a is freedom from this very egoism ; which freedom is
nothing else than Universal all-others -including (not excluding)
Ego-ism. Hence mumuksha, ' wish for moksha ', is rightly
understood as Universal Love incipient, while Moksha is that
same Universal Love full-blown and triumphant. In theoso-
phical literature, stress is laid on the fact that the greatest
qualification for ' initiation ' is having brought others along
on to the Path and helped them to their ' majority ' of soul.
Glta and Bhagavata and other scriptures repeatedly declare
that an indispensable qualification for the aspirant is ' love
and active service of all beings '. The gateway of the Path
is v a i - r a g y a, ' dis-passion ', but it has to be a ' passion-
ately compassionate dispassion *. Many types ofvai-ragya
are pictured in the classic legends of India. The purest of
the pui% is that of Rama, wholly saftvika, so to say, (see
Mystic Experiences or Tales from Yoga-Vasishtha); also that
P., CH. XV] KINDS OF VAIRAGYA 463
of Gautama Buddha ; in both we see profoundly compassion-
ate wish to free all" living things from their misery. Arjuna's
revulsion is very limitedly sattvika, mixed with much rajas
too ; his compassion is only for his kith and kin and relatives.
Bhartr-hari's is rajasa-tamasa, caused by disgust with
the world because of the infidelity of his queenj but it is,
later on, made sattvika by his intense pursuit of Atma-vidya.
Similar is the case of the merchant Samadhi (in Durga-Sapta-
Shatl), who was driven away from his wealthy home by his
wife and sons, because they wanted to be unchecked masters
of the whole property ; and, at the end of three years' severe
asceticism, desired from the goddess Durga, only ' the Supreme
Knowledge which would annihilate egoism '. Somewhat
different is the case of Samadhis' companion, king Sura^ha (in
the same high story), who desired from Purga, long-lasting
kingship, and is to become the reigning Manu, Savarni, of the
next Manvantara ; ! strictly speaking, perhaps there was no
vairagya in his case, but a sattvika-rajasa wish to rule justly
and give happiness to the people; but since such rule is not
possible without good grounding in Atma-Vidya, the rajas in
his case was infused with a high degree and quality of sattva.
Steadiest and also pure in sufficient degree is the deliberate
* vairagya ' of the son (or daughter) of Manu, who, having per-
formed the duties of the first two stages of life, a s h r a m a - s,
* retires ' from the world, philosophically ; in this case too, it
is not so much ' vairagya f in the sense of sudden onset of
passion or compassion, as, indeed, moksha already achieved,
partly, if not wholly : for exposition of the subject of ashra-
mas, see The Science of Social Organisation, or the briefer
The Science of the Self,
Dear reader !, if you happen to be husband, wife, father,
mother, elder relative, super-ordinate officer, teacher, in the
outer world ! your position acquires a new and deeper and
more wonderful significance for you, when you realise this
marvellous fact, that the necessary condition of your own
1 This writer has met with no definite statement to that effect in the
old books ; but it almost seems that Suratha and Samadhi were born as
Maru and DeVapi (Bhagavata, XII, ii) ; are now the Theosophical
Masters Morya and Koothoomi ; and will be the Manu and the Buddha
of the next Race and Epoch.
464 HELPING OTHERS ON TO THE PATH [SC. OF
advancement is that you help your youngers and dependents
on to that same path of Progress. The realisation becomes a
powerful incentive to patience and tenderness ; for you now
always say to yourself consciously : ' These weaker souls have
been entrusted to me that I may help them on, with myself,
to that ancient Path, ' sharp as the razor's edge ', yet also
strewn with the flowers of love and sympathy, and also safe-
guarded with the balustrades of holy instructions, by the
strong and watchful hands and hearts of the Elders of
the Race !
' When the Soul's inebriate,
With God, 'tis in no mood to prate !
The gem, when found, is hid away ;
Why make display day after day !
The balance holds, the scales don't sway,
What need the goods again to weigh !
The Swan hath found the Manasa-lake ;
Shall it again to puddles take ?
That wanton barmaid Consciousness
Hath drunken love's-wine to excess
Herself, and keeps no more the tale
Of how much and to whom the sale !
Thy Lover Loved is there, in Thee !
Not out, but in, ope eyes and see ! '
KABIR
* No bar guards His palace-gateway, no veil screens His
face of light,
Thou, O Soul ! by thine own self -ness art enwrapt in
darkest night !
Youth is gone, and age is on thee, yet vain dreams still
fill thy mind,
If thou turn not from thy small self, how shalt thou thy
Great Self find ?
Taste the wonder of this heart-meat, as it burneth more
and more,
P., CH. XV] MYSTIC ECSTASIES 4J55
Through life's ocean -brine there spreadeth savour sweet
from shore to shore ! .
But the names differ, beloved !, thou, I, all are only One,
In the firefly gleams the self-same beam that blazeth in
the Sun !
Since He knows all art ^nd science, we too may invent
and know ;
In the human heart is hidden more than all the Scriptures
show ! x
Thou the music in the song-bird, Thou the fragrance in
the rose,
Thou the Goal that all are seeking, Thou the Self that
each one knows !
Why, and Where, art Thou in hiding, My Beloved !,
come to Me !
Every year-long moment brings thy Lover desperate
agony !
Not without Thy-self permittest may the strongest win
to Thee,
Out of this Turmoil and Tumult of our Life's Tem-
pestuous sea ! '
QARlN
* Behind the mask of every face He hid
God, very God ; and I I knew it not.
The Right had fallen wrongly into Wrong,
The True into Untruth I knew it not.
The Lord of all the Worlds in mud and mire
He begged from door to door I knew it not.
On every page of scripture He had writ,
' Nearer am I to Thee than time own heart,'
But I I could not read I knew it not.
In temple, church, and mosque I sought for long,
The gold hid in the ' mine * (Me) I knew it .not.
The moon that I had seen and had forgot
The clouds had hid the moon I knew rt not.
The rust of selfishness o'erlay my heart,
I had forgot my-Self I knew it not.
I sought the Wonder in the Noise Outside
30
466 SUMMATION [SC. OF
It lay still in My Heart I knew it not.
But now, my Soul, my God, my Self, my All,
Thou magic-maker of this vast mirage,
Juggler of joys and sorrows, loves and hates,
Thee sole I (know) An-other (I know) Not !
I know I only am, alJ^Else is Naught !
I only is, and all This Else is Not !
I know I am but I, ' I-(am)-This-Not.'
HASAN SH&H
CHAPTER XVI
SUMMATION '
ALL the main facts or rather principles connected with
jivas-souls and atoms-bodies have, perhaps, been general-
ly brought out and summed up now. One more point
deserves some words : The distinction between Universal
and Singular, and the Relation between them, mentioned
before. This triplet belongs equally to jivas and atoms ;
is, thus, v part of the Summation of the World-Process ;
and could not well be discussed before some general
notion had been gained of the distinction between ' the
ideal world ' and ' the real world ' ; the former of which
is, as it were, a complete and standing picture or plan of
the stream of successive events which make up the latter ;
P., CH. XVI] SUBJECTIVE-OBJECTIVE CATEGORIES 467
and so occupies, to this latter, the position of universal to
singular.
The aphorisms of Nyaya, as we now have them,
classify and describe the constituents of Samsara in their
subjective aspect, i.e., in terms of cognition, as the means
of knowledge. 1 The aphorisms of Vaisheshika classify
them as objects of knowledge, in their objective aspect, in
terms of the cognised. Thus, Kanada, author of the
Vaisheshika aphorisms, states that there are six primary
padarthas ' meanings ot words ', things, i.e., objects, viz.,
dravya, guna, karma, samanya, vishsha, and samavaya.
The first three have been discussed before, (pp. 284-312
supra). The next three mean, respectively, the * universal
or general,' the ' singular or special,' and the * relation of
inseparable co-inherence '. '
As often indicated before, the One true Universal is
Pratyag- Atma ; the Many, the manifold Singular, the
Multitude of Singulars, is Mula-Prakrti ; and the peculiar
bond that exists between them is the real primal
s a m a v a y a-s a m ba n d h a, literally, the * firm bond of
going into, merging into, pervasion of, each other ',
1 ' Nis-shreyasa, Summum Bonum, Highest Happiness, Moksha, can
be achieved only by True Knowledge of the essential nature of (1) the
Means, tests, proofs, evidences, measures (i.e., measur-ers), ascertainers,
of true knowledge; (2) the Knowable, the to-be-known, to-be-ascer-
tained ; (3) Doubt ; (4) Purpose or Motive (of enquiry or argument) ; (5)
Familiar Example ; (6) Established Tenet, accepted maxim or principle or
fact ; (7) the Members of a Syllogism ; (8) Inference (especially of a
refutative or repudiative or eliminative kind) ; (9) Decided Conclusion ;
{10, 11, 12) Three kinds of discussion (according to three kinds of
purpose) ; (13, 14, 15, 16) Four kinds of Fallacies. It should be noted
that Moksha is the principal aim, and that the nature of the Self is the
first and foremost ' to-be-ascertained ' : Nyaya-sutra t the very first.
468 CATEGORY OF ' CO-INHERENCE ' [SC. OF
>
4 co-inherence '. Beside this One Universal l there is,
strictly speaking, no other Universal, but only * generals \
So, beside the (apparently, comparatively) final (pseudo-
ultihiate infinitesimal) singulars of Etat-' This ' a there is
no other real singular, but only species or ' specials '.*
The characteristic of these ' generals ' and ' specials ' ot
'particulars' is that each one of them is general to
satta-samSnya, 'Universal Being,' <?C- or
!, para- or antya-sSmanya, ' final or ultimate universal/ or 1^-
r, Para-jati. summum genus.
2 ^l^lf^tt 5 !, antya-vishesha, <?C-fl$ft, para-visbsha, ^IT-fttft*
charama vishesha, ' final, or extreme or ultimate particularity. '
3 <TOK3rfti par-Spara-jati.
Extremes meet. Para-samanya and para- vishesha are identical , as
Infinite and Infinitesimal ; Brahma and jlva. As said before, a final
ultimate parama-anu as para-vishsha is a ' myth/ an imaginary concept,
a convention, devised for practical convenience. With reference to
samavaya, some observations of Max Muller are worth quoting. They
are taken from his Six Systems of Indian Philosophy (collected works).
pp. 376-7, and 447; that book, so far as I am aware, continues to be the
most clear, compact, concise, correct, and comprehensive work, on its
subject. " Samavaya or intimate connection is a very useful name for a
connection between things which cannot exist, one without the other,
such as cause and effect, parts and whole, and the like. It comes very
near to a-vina-bhava, *>., the not-without being, and should be carefully
distinguished from mere conjunction or succession " . . . . " (This)
category . . , is peculiar to Indian philosophy. It is translated in-
hesion or inseparability . . . It is different from mere connection, as
between horse and rider. . . . There is samavaya between threads and
eloth, (the ideas of) father and son, two halves and a whole, cause and
effect, substance and qualities, thought and word, the two being inter*
dependent and therefore inseparable. Though this relationship is known in
non-Indian philosophies, it has not received a name of its own, though
such a term might have proved very useful in several controversies " ; as
those, we may add, of nominalism, realism, conceptualism, etc. A-yuta-
si^dhi, of Yoga philosophy, seems to be much the same as samavaya or
a-vina-bhiva. R the last, Max Muller's translation would perhaps be
more intelligible if read as ' not-being-without,' i.e., ' each being not able
to exist without the other * .
P. CH. XVl] A ONE IS ALSO A MANY 469
lower specials, and at the same time special to a
higher general. In other words, while Pratyag-atma is
the principle of the Universal, and Mula-prakrti the
principle of the singular, the jlva-atom is individual or
particular, combining and reconciling in itself both uni-
versal and singular.
Difficulty in the expression of this thought is occasion-
ed by the fact that while the meaning of universal and
general and special is comparatively fixed and free from
ambiguity, such is not the case with the significations
of singular and individual and particular, as the words
are currently used. 1 The underlying philosophical idea
of their mutual relation being indeterminate, the express-
ion is naturally doubtful also. And this very haziness
of the idea is at the bottom of the long-lasting dispute
between the doctrines of nominalism and realism and
their various modifications. As a fact, in the world
around us, we actually find neither the true One, nor the
true Many or Not-One, by itself. What we do 'find
always, instead, is a one which is also a many at the
same time.* We distinguish between the two by em-
phasising within ourselves the jlva-aspect, i.e., the aspect
of self-consciousness and Pratyag-atma, and, from the
1 An instance of this may be seen in the divers arrangements mad*
of the triplets of the categories of Kant ; thus at p. 221 of Schwegler's
History of Philosophy, the triplet of ' totality, plurality, and unity '
is arranged in an order the reverse of that followed in the original
of Kant.
2 The pen with which, the table on which, the house in which,
I am writing, each of these is a one ; but is also composed of many, very
many, parts.
470 SUMMUM GENUS, MINUTUM INDIVIDUUM [SC. OF
standpoint thereof, beholding the Not-Self in juxta-
position to and yet in separation from the Self. The
facts, so viewed, are clear. One and the many, abstract
and concrete, general and special, universal and singular,
are just as inseparable as back and front. They are
inseparable in fact as well as in thought (which also is
a fact, though manufactured in subtler material, as, on
the other hand, every * fact ' is a ' thought/ of ' consci-
ousness ', and existing by and in consciousness.) But
the phraseology requires to be settled in accordance with
this fact and thought. The settlement may perhaps be
made thus : The word ' universal ' should be confined to
the true One, Pratyag-atma, and to the modifications and
manifestations of its unity, viz., the laws of the ' pure '
reason, 1 the abstract laws and principles which underlie
the details of the World-Process and are as it were the
transformation of the Pratyag-atma itself in association
with the diversity of Mula-prakrti. The word ' singular '
should similarly be confined to the pseudo-true Many, the
pseudo-finally separate. As the universal is the One which
includes and supports all, so the singular is the exactly
opposite one that would exclude all else ;* it indicates
the pseudo-ultimate constituents of the many, which may
well, for practical convenience, be technically called
* atom/ ' anu ' or * param-anu *. 3 For that which is
1 The sattva-f actor of Mahat-Bud^hi, the cognitional element or
aspect of 'the Cosmic Mind, Cosmic Intelligence. Cf. Dharma-m6gha^
p. 441 supra.
2 , para-vishSsha or S^ft^Cf, antya-vishsha.
P., CH. XVl] THE DEFINITE 471
between these two ones, a something which is a one and
a many at the same time, a whole composed of parts, the
word ' particular ' seems appropriate. Such a ' parti-
cular ' would be * general ' (an imitation of the universal)
to those it includes and supports and holds together, and
' special ' (an imitation of the singular) to that by which
it itself is supported along with other co-particulars ; all
so-called inanimate substances, all sheaths and bodies
of the so-called animate, all objects of cognition or desire
or action, all genera and species, types, sub-types and
archetypes, would thus be ' particulars '. The word
1 individual ' is peculiar ; it would be useful if it were
confined to the jlva-atom, which combines the true uni-
versal and the pseudo-true singular, rather than only
generals and specials. It is not Pratyag-atma only, nor
Mula-prakrti only, but both; and jet, because of the
unfixable, in-de-finite, pseudo-infinite nature of the atom,
the jlva-atom may be called a particular also. When-
ever and wherever we may take an actual individual jlva-
atom, the atom-portion of it, its sheath, will be found to
be a ' definite ' that merges on both sides into the ' in-
de-finite ' ; it is an infinitesimal fraction, on the one
hand, of a pseudo-infinite universe, and, on the other,
it is a pseudo-infinite multiple of infinitesimal fractions.
' All things, all beings, all thoughts, feels, acts, begin and
also end in the in-de-finite ; they are de-finite only
midway.' J
% a. 28.
472 BETWEEN TWO INDEFINITES [SC. OF
If we were defining the main items of the World-
Process in terms of the Absolute, the jlva-atom would be
called the individualised Absolute, and a world-system a
particularised one ; the Absolute itself being then com-
paratively called the universal Absolute. But in view of
the statements made in the preceding paragraph, it
would appear to be almost more consistent and syste-
matic to call the jlva-atom a singularised Absolute. Yet,
though, in strictness, this would be the better descrip-
tion, still, for all practical purposes of metaphysical
research for the reasons for which the jlva-atom may
be regarded as a particular also it is more useful to
employ the expression ' individualised Absolute '. The
1 individuality ' of the jiva in the jlva-atom is more pre-
dominant than the ' singularity ' of the atom therein for
Tennyson's " Who knows ! From the great deep to the great deep
he goes," is an expression, in poetical and emotional form, of the same
intellectual 'truth. All the World-Process, the world-ex-istence, is a
becoming ; all life is a passing ; every river is a flowing ; every sensation
is a feeling. Splendour is the coming in and at the same time the going
out of wealth. Stoppage means sinking into pralaya. Too much care
kills its object and prevents it from fulfilling its purpose and achieving
its destiny. Beauty, too, is for due use, and use makes more beauty.
Existence, manifestation, is in and by action. Every atom, and every
psychosis, is a (dual) focussing, a vortex, in a cont inuutft^ of ' ether, f
and of ' general sensation ' or ' affective tone ' or ' volitional tension '.
Yoga-V&sishtha, III, xiv, 47.
' That which comes between is and is not, existent and non-exist-
ent, is what is meant by the word bhavati, becomes \ i.e., between
Being and nothing is Becoming.'
"The Anglican noble, in a well-known passage of Bede, compares
the life of man to the flight of a bird which darts quickly through a
lighted hall, out of darkness, and into darkness again "; Inge, Chris-
tian Mysticism, p. 251. Many other poets and writers of note, of east
and west have depicted the thought with various examples.
P., CH. XVl] UNIVERSAL AND INDIVIDUAL 473
such purposes. Attention has been drawn before, to the
fact that the Instinct behind Language has given to both
jiva and atom, the same adjectival name, ' in-divid-ual f ,
* un-divid-able ', ' in-divis-ible ', ' a-tom '.
On the above view, recognising the nature and the
necessity of the connection between the One and the
Many, it becomes easy to see what the true mean of re-
conciliation is between nominalism and realism. Every
object, being a jiva-atom, or a conglomerate of jlva-
atoms (see pp. 347-352 supra, regarding ' individualities
within individualities), is general and special, abstract
and concrete, at one and the same time. Therefore,
when the new-born infant opens its eyes for the first
time, it necessarily sees the genus ' woman ' as well
,as the species ' (individual) mother,' at one and the
same time. As soon as we see any object, we see its
generality as well as its speciality. 1 Whenever we see
a one, we see also at once the possibility, inherent in the
one, of a pseudo-infinity of that one, i.e., of such ones.
The One is universal ; a one reproduces the One ; the
universality of the true One reappears as the generality
and the pseudo-infinity of the illusive one. 2
1 The fact has an important bearing on methods of education.
3 In this fact is contained the principle of the validity of generalisa-
tions, of induction, o^ff^f, vyapti, and not in any repetitions of experi-
ments ; these only help to eliminate, by means of concomitant variations,
i.e., agreements and differences, 3f?R, anvaya, and sqf^^> ? vyati-re*ka,
the accidental from the essential qualities. This fact, of the instantaneous
seeing of the ' general ' in the ' special ', is named SKSfflf^ pratv-Ssat$i,
in the ' new ' Nyaya, started by Gange*sha (circa 12th century A.C.)
It should also be noted that the considerations put forward in the
text deal with one aspect of the dispute between nominalism and realism.
474 ETERNAL MAN AND WOMAN [SC. OF
This fact is embodied in the grammatical affixes :
' ness,' ' ship,' ' hood ' (in English), and ' ta ' or ' tva r
(in Samskrt), expressive of the abstract and of quality,
which can be added on to any noun or adjective. It is
significant that abstractness and generality should belong
to, and be expressible exclusively in, terms of quality ;
for quality or guna corresponds to jnana, which in turn
corresponds specially with Pratyag-atma, the one uni-
versal and abstract. Abstraction, praty-ahara, indeed,
means * drawing away from others ' and reduction into
terms of Pratyag-atma, making a one and therefore a
pseudo-wmversal, of that which was mixed up with and
part of the many. So too, the concrete is mostly express-
ed in terms of motion or karma, which corresponds to
kriya, which corresponds to Not-Self ; as witness the
fact that so many names or nouns originate in
viz., the one asserting that abstract concepts do not exist apart from
concrete things, the other that they do. In another aspect also, about
the relation between thought and language, notions and names, the
dispute may be reconciled by the same considerations. The two are
inseparable, though distinguishable ; as, indeed, all the contents of the
World-Process are necessarily inseparable from each other, because held
together in and by the One Consciousness, though endlessly distinguish-
able from each other, because held together by that Consciousness as
Many Mula-Prakrti. In the course of a beautiful hymn to Purusha and
IVakrti, as Eternal Man and Woman, ever inseparate, Bh&gavaja,.
VI. xix, 13, says :
fl ssRiftfl WOT, tft:
, SUOT: c
' She is manifestation ; Thou the Final Cause thereof. She is
sense and body ; Thou the Soul behind. She is name and form ; Thou
the basic Thought.'
P., CH. XVl] GENERA AND SPECIES 475
verbs. 1 Finally, the relation of the two is embodied in
diravya, substance, noun or name ; it combines act and fact,
characteristic action and quality, in a ' thing,' and corres-
ponds to the hidden Negation-Shakti that manifests its
various forms in the declensional changes of termination
of the noun (in the older languages ; for the separate
prepositions of modern languages are artificial separations
of these terminational affixes).
From these observations it should be clear that the
universal 9 is One ; the singular, Many ; and genera-
species, pseudo-infinite; and that everywhere and always
there is the possibility of distinguishing the abstract from
the concrete by the mere addition of ' ness ' to the latter ;
in other words, by concentrating the oneness and uni-
versality of the Self upon and into the concrete, and so
of discovering an endless series, in an endless gradation,
of concepts, ideas, types, archetypes, etc, Plato seems
to have spoken of only one archetypal world, while the
legitimate inferences from the logion require a pseudo-
infinity of such, higher and lower, in an endlessly as-
cending and descending scale. The logion itself, it should
be noted, and the laws and principles that proceed from
1 On the other hand, it is true that verbs also are formed, later on,
from nouns ; but fewer, apparently. From cognition, action ; from
action, cognition ; this is Nature's circle.
1 As noted before, Vaisheshika calls the highest, or, rather, the one
true universal, by the name of universal being, fl^ffflRfWT, sa(ta-
sScianya, which, plainly, is the objective name for the Self ; and the
lowest or true singular or fst$ft; vishesha, it calls anu or atom, which is
but another name for ta-This.
476 TYPES AND ARCHETYPES [SC. OF
it directly, can scarcely be spoken of as types or arche-
types ; for types and archetypes are comparatively de-
finite objects, abstract-concrete, (thoTigh with the aspect
of abstractness or generality and commonness inclining to
be predominant), while laws and principles are only
relations between objects.
With these remarks we may bring to a close the
observations regarding the general features of jlvas and
atoms, and conclude this work with a re-statement of the
Summation of the World-Process in Consciousness. 1
In the preceding chapter we have seen how the
endless and apparently quite disconnected diversity of
atom beside atom and atom within atom, plane beside
plane and plane within plane, world beside world and
world within world, individuality beside individuality and
individuality within individuality, collapses together into
an ordered juggler's box within box under the touch of
the principle of the ever-expanding Individual Consci-
ousness, which, taking its source in the Universal Consci-
ousness of Pratyag-atma, is incessantly threading together
all the otherwise disconnected beads of Mula-prakrti.
The more the nature of Consciousness is pondered
on, the more the nature of the jiva becomes clear. As
the most significant definition of the atom is that it is a
persisting-point, i.e., a line or sphere of objectivity, of
unconsciousness, in its triple aspect of cognisability,
1 More detailed consideration of the three aspects of the jiva's life,
viz., cognition, desire, action, will be found in The Science of the
Emotions, The Science of Social Organisation, The Science of the
Self, and Pranava-vada or the Science o/ the Sacred Word.
P., CH. XVl] DIRECT VS. INDIRECT KNOWLEDGE 477
desirability, and movability, guna, dravya, and karma,
so the most significant definition of the jiva is that
it is a persisting-point, i.e., a line or sphere of consci-
ousness and subjectivity, in its triple aspect of cogniser,
desirer, and actor. Combining these two definitions,.
a jlva-atom might be defined as the individualised
Absolute (thus bringing out the true significance of
the current saying, that ' jiva is verily Brahma and
naught else ' x ) ; a particular number of them may be said
' I will tell you in a single sentence what has been expounded in ten
million books, viz., Brahma is true, the moving world is an illusion, jiva
is Brahma and Naught Else '. But more is wanted ; realisation is in the
first person, not the third. The third person is outside me ;b\vhat I want
is the first person, within me, my-Self .
3*91 5 \?, STSfTeSJlT: fl
4 Brahma is this is but indirect knowledge ;* Brahma am, I am
Brahma this is direct realisation '. All philosophies, all religions,
mysticisms, gnosticisms, sciences, arts, need to be tested by this supreme
experience and reduced into terms of this First-hand Direct Knowledge.
* I-This-Not '. The work is well worth doing on an extensive scale the
reduction of different philosophers' views into terms of this Logion ;
(see pp. 199-204, supra). Thus, the Arabian Sufi, Jili, (14th century A.D.
in his work Ins&n-ul-K&mil, ' The Perfect Man ', and Hegel, use very
similar expressions in developing their ontology. The former speaks of
" The Dhat developing an inward and an outward aspect, am& and
ahadiyya, and ahadiyya again developing two aspects, huviyya or that-
ness and Aniyya or I-ness ; and the latter, of ' The self-sundering of the
Idea ', ' the self-diremption of the Absolute ', ' the absolute going out into
its opposite, and then returning into itself ' , 'the unity of consciousness
holds within itself in equilibrium the vital antagonism of opposites,
thought and thing, mind and matter, spirit and nature, which seems to
rend the world asunder '. . ." ; (Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysti-
cism, 81-97). All this becomes luminous, freed from misty obscurity,
only when we translate it into terms of 4 I-This-Not \ That philoso-
phers and mystics seem to differ from each other, is only because they
478 UNIVERSAL AND INDIVIDUAL, SAME [SC. OF
to constitute a particularised Absolute, or a world -system,
a cosmos that also appears like the individualised Abso-
lute to be complete in itself ; and the totality of these
individualised and particularised Absolutes, to make up
the universal or truly complete Absolute, Brahma ;
all this not interfering, in the slightest degree, with the
fact that individual or (strictly speaking) singular, parti-
cular, and universal are not three but absolutely identical,
literally one and the ame.
An illustration may perhaps help to make these
statements a little clearer. Suppose that life, that the
World-Process, consists of ten experiences : that is to
say, of five sensations, each dual as pleasurable and pain-
ful, so that the two factors of each such pair, when
balanced against each other, neutralise each other and
leave behind a cipher, as equal credit and debit in a
banker's account may do. One self, going through these
experiences in one fixed order of time, space, and motion,
would exhaust them all comparatively quickly, and would
form one individuality, marked and defined by the ten
experiences in that one order, thus making one line of
consciousness. But let us now vary the order of the ten
experiences ; this mere variation of order, it will be seen,
implies a variation in the times, spaces, and movements
connected with each item of experience. If we vary the
order, then, |in all possible ways, but without decreasing
the number of the experiences, we have at once orders to
use terms of the third person, 'he', 'she*, 'it', instead of the first
person, ' I ', ' we '. When we speak in terms of ' I ', we bring things
nome to ourselves.
P., CH. XVl] INFINITE EXPERIENCES 479
the number of ' factorial ten/ in algebraical technicality,
that is to say 3,628,800. It is clear at once that each of
these millions of orders of the succession of experiences
marks out and defines, and therefore amounts to, a dis-
tinct and separate individuality; for an individuality can
no other wise be described, discriminated and fixed, than
by enumerating the experiences of that individuality, by
narrating its biography. Yet, while each one of these
orders makes a distinct individuality, it is also equally
clear, at the same time, that in essence, substance, com-
pleteness, all these individualities are verily and truly
one ; and that whatever difference there is between them
is made up of the illusory differences of mere time, space,
motioii, all three utter emptinesses and nothings, the
triple aspect of Negation. 1
In place of five as the number of sensations, now
substitute the number ' pseudo-infinite ' ; for tats
are pseudo-infinite by axiom, and each is pleasurable
during the affirmation of it, and painful during the
negation." The total number of our experiences then
1 Thus, a thousand globe-trotters, travelling round the earth, at the
same or different times, over different routes, with different accou re-
men ts, will yet be able to say, if they meet and compare notes after
completing the circumambulation : ' We have all seen the same coun-
tries, and passed through the same experiences ' (speaking generally).
1 See Nyaya SBfra, III, ii, 35.
: \ Bh­a on same ; ' The knower, i.e. conscious ego, is motived
by like and dislike, to advance and retreat, respectively ' ; ' when a
480 ALL IN EACH, EACH IN ALL [SC. OF
becomes 2 X pseudo-infinite, and the total number of
permutations of these experiences is 2Xoo (factorial
twice pseudo-infinite). This, at first sight, should
be the total number of all possible ' lines of conscious-
ness,' or ' individualities ' or ' jivas '. But this is
so only at first sight, and we have not reached the end
of our calculations even now. For we have up to now
been taking the experiences all at a time. But they have
to be taken in all possible combinations also, one at a
time, two at a time, and three, and four, and so on, to
pseudo-infinity. The result is, briefly, a pseudo-infinity
of pseudo-infinities as the total number of jivas in the
World- Process; each being a distinct, immortal, ever-
spirating, ever-gyrating line of consciousness ; yet each
being absolutely identical with all others ; for the World-
Process is made up entirely and exclusively of the one
universal Self, passing itself through all possible pseudo-
infinite experiences, simultaneously from the standpoint
of that universal Self, successively from that of the limited
not-selves. 1
person knows that so-and-so will give him pleasure, then he tries to secure
it ; if he knows that it will cause him pain, he tries to avoid it '.
1 The Secret Doctrine, V. pp. 397-398, says : " What difference can
it make in the perceptions of an ego, whether he enter Nirvana loaded
with the recollections only of his own personal lives tens of thousands
according to the modern re-incarnationists or whether, merged entirely
in the Parabrahmic state it becomes one with the All, with the absolute
knowledge and the absolute feeling of representing collective humanities ?
Once that an ego lives only ten distinct individual lives, he must neces-
sarily lose his own self, and become mixed upmerged, so to say with
these ten selves."
If the reader will shut his eyes and ponder what exactly he feels
would be perpetuation of his separate individuality, he will probably
understand the problem clearly : ' What exactly is it that I crave to
P., CH. XVl] WHY VARIATIONS OF ORDER 481
It may be asked : Why this interminable vari-
ation of the order of the experiences ? As usual, the
answer is contained in the logion. The one Prafyag-
atma is the ever-present. The many Mula-prakrti is
the ever- successive, ever-past, and ever-future. The
opposition between the two is utter. Yet also is
there inevitable and constant juxtaposition and relation.
The one is the universal, sarvika, samanya; the other
is the singular, individual, pratyekika, vishsha ; and
between them there exists unbreakable relation of co-
inherence, samavaya. The reconciliation of the con-
tradiction is that Pratyag-atma becomes as multitudinous
as the tats, in order to encompass them all simultane-
ously in the one vast present of the totality of the
perpetuate, to eternalise, when I desire per-sona.1 immortality? Any parti-
cular experience ? The ownership of any particular thing ? Any particular
shape of face and figure ? Any emotional mood ? Any intellectual feat ?
Any physical exploit ? Any particular piece of knowledge ? Any relation-
ship with any person ? Any life of crime ? Any ot sainthness ? Any
agonising experience ? Any particular state of delight ?
The answer, after due introspection, will always be ' No ' (See f . ns.
on pp. 84, 141, 314 supra). For any and every particular experience,
possession, face, mood, etc., will pall, will tire, will lose interest, after
some time, short or long. When my own body, so very dear to me,
becomes so tiresome to me, after sixteen, eighteen, twenty hours of
waking and working, that I run away from it into sleep, day after day,
night after night, how can I cling to anything else unchangingly
throughout sempiternity ?
Change is the Jaw and the condition of separate individual existence.
Yet it is also a fact that ' I ' wants ' immortality '. What is the recon-
ciliation ? ' Immortality * means ' the assurance of immortality ' ; I am
the Universal Supreme I, therefore necessarily Immortal. But all per-
sonal or individual ' I's ' are the universal I; therefore I am all ' I's '.
But ' personal I ' means a conglomerate of particular experiences ;
therefore I contain all possible such experiences and conglomerates ; and
I can revive in memory and vivid imagination, and therefore in reality,
any I wish, whenever I please. This potentiality is really all I crave,
when I crave personal immortality ; and metaphysical jSana-knowledge
assures it to me.
31
482 ILLUSTRATIONS [SC. OF
World-Process ; and again, each single one of this
multitude of (Pratyag-atma transformed into pseudo-
infinite jlvas) also incessantly endeavours to encompass
the whole of the many in the total succession of end-
less time and space and motion, because each jlva
must be equal to and cannot be less than the whole of
Pratyag-atma. Take the totality of the World-Process
at any one instant of time, and you find all possible
pseudo-infinite experiences present therein, simultaneous-
ly, coexistently, side by side, in the pseudo-infinity of
space sorrows in one region, equivalent joys in another ;
gains here, equal losses there ; life and growth in one
place, a balancing death and decay in another.! But,
again, take any one experience, a single point or moment
of consciousness, and follow it out behind and beyond,
into the past and the future, along any one of the pseudo-
infinite diameters that in their totality make up the solid
mass of the sphere, any one of the lines of consciousness
of which it is the meeting-point, the point of junction
and of crossing, and along that line there will be found
1 To realise that all these sorrows, joys, gains, life and death, are in
the I, are in Me, at once this is Moksha ; to realise that they are all in
Me, successively (as described in the next sentence of the text) is also
moksha of another kind.
: I JMna-garbha.
P., CH. XVl] MORE ILLUSTRATIONS 483
all possible experiences in different moments of time, in
different successions. 1
Another illustration may be attempted : Take a
round ball of iron. Let this ball be composed of a
number of round bullets. Let the ball have a revo-
lutional movement of its own as a whole, on a fixed axis,
so that the space occupied by it never changes. Let each
of the bullets have another motion of its own, perfectly
free and ever-changing in direction, but strictly confined
within the periphery of the ball, and therefore necessarily
so arranged that each bullet moves only by the equal
displacement and movement of another. The ball now
combines in itself, always and simultaneously, all the
possible movements of all its constituents ; and each of
these constituents also passes through each one of all
1 Compare the Sarprkjt saying :
gEHcf f :*sf, : I
4 Pain (follows invariably) after pleasure, and pleasure after pain/
Bhagavata, V, xxvi, 2, expressly says that ' all jfvas must pass through
all experiences, turn by turn ',
cfitj: 9OTT ^IcR: a*TfaTCT: 33? tp eefo aiWfifa
Brhad Up. has some words which may also be interpreted to the
same effect, ' all are equal or similar, all are in-finite ',
Mbh., Shantip., also says that, ' The gatf, going, path, course,
destiny, of no one is greater than that of any one ; Vetja shows that all
are equal ' ,
ff
For yet other illustrations, see my World War and Its Only Cure
World Order and World Religion, pp. 411-413, 484.
484 ROCK-LIKE MOVELESSNESS [SC. OF
these possible movements, but in succession, the motior*
of each being so counterbalanced by that of another,
from moment to moment, that the position of the ball, as
a whole, in space, never changes. Finally, wherever in
this illustration we have a definite limit of size or
number, substitute unlimitedness. Let the whole ball be
boundlessly large. Let each bullet composing it be in
turn composed of smaller bullets ; these of shot ; these
again of smaller shot ; and so on pseudo-infinitely. Let
these bullets and shot be of pseudo-infinite sizes ; and
let the peripheries of these bullets and shot be purely
imaginary, so that each bullet and shot, while one such
in itself, is also at the same time part of the volume
enclosed by a pseudo-infinite number of peripheries of all
possible sizes coexisting with and overlapping each
other within the single periphery of the whole. The
ball now becomes the Absolute. Its transcendent
axis, of the pseudo-infinity of the numbers of which
the ball is veritably composed, is the logion. Its
revolution vanishes into a rock-like fixity of change-
lessness, 1 because it occupies the whole of space, and
in the absence of a remaining and surrounding space,.
maha-shila-sattS, ' rock-like-being,' frequently des-
cribed in Yoga V&sishtha. This illustration is not altogether fanciful.
Physical science is establishing more and more clearly every day that it
is almost a literal description of what is actually taking place in all solids.
And when we remember that metaphysical as well as scientific reasoning
favours 'the belief that space is a vacuum filled full with a plenum of
subtler and subtler matter ; that the heavenly bodies are not moving in
empty but in matter-filled space ; that vast masses of subtler matter cling
to and form shells for what we call these ' solid ' globes, and participate
in their rotatory and other motions ; that the thicker the rotating
shell the faster will be its movement at the surface ; that the quicker
P., CH. XVl] YET PERPETUAL MOTION ALSO 485
against which it could be seen, no revolution can be. Its
universal sphericity is the Pratyag-atma. Its concrete
and discrete material is Mula-prakrti. Its bullets within
bullets, and shot within shot are the pseudo-infinite jiva-
atoms which, in their pseudo-infinitesimal sphericity of
pointness, are identical with the infinite sphericity of the
whole. The imaginary-ness of the periphery of each is
the endlessness of the overlapping of individuality-points.
The endless movement of each of these points makes a
line of consciousness working out in successive time ;
while the totality of these lines of consciousness is the
transcendent completeness of the Absolute.
the movement the greater is the resistance and the hardness, i.e.,
solidity, etc. if we remember these things we may see that it is possible
that the illustration literally describes the actual World-Process, and
that we are living and moving freely within masses of matter that present
a skin of iron, a ' ring-pass-not, ' to things outside. The ' discarded ' old
doctrines of 'cycle in epicycle, orb in orb,' of heavens one above and
around another, in which the heavenly bodies are studded, as bosses in
shields, etc., thus seem to have a chance of being restored with a much
fuller significance. This will be only in keeping with the general law of
all the march of the World-Process, viz., that a thing passes into its
opposite and then returns again to its original condition on a higher level,
endlessly. Take up a newspaper, and we find illustrations of this in the
most widely-separated departments of life thus ; (1) Pedlars and hawkers
are replaced by great central stores, depots, and fixed shops, and then
comes the travelling salesman again ; (2) duels, single combats, heroes,
are replaced by massed bands, and these are superseded by bush-fighting
and sharpshooting ; then the massed bands reappear as trench-fighting,
and the single combats as the fights of aeroplanes and submarines ; (3)
Chinese writing is superseded by the alphabet, which again is threatened
with displacement by shorthand, and so on.
The illustration of the rock may be interpreted in another way. The
sculptor's mind fashions ideally, any number of images, one after another,
in one and the same block of marble. All these possible images may be
said to be acutually contained in the block all the time. The doctrine
of any number of ' theoretical arches ' being formed in any given wall,
any of which can be made concrete and manifest by breaking an opening
in the appropriate place, illustrates the same fact.
486 LAW OF RELATIVITY [SC. OF
In these illustrations we see the summation of the
World -Process, while also seeing how the utter emptiness
which is the utter fullness of the Absolute, its changeless
balance of being against nothing, is always being en-
deavoured to be reproduced in the individualised Absolute,
the jiva-atom. Life is balanced against death ; progress
against regress ; anode against kathode; anabolism against
katabolism ; pleasure against pain ; being against nothing ;
Spirit against Matter. Taking the net result of each
completed life also, we see the same balancing appear*
as has found expression, and in one sense, true expression,
in words like those of Bhartr-hari, the poet-king and then
the ascetic-yogi : ' What real difference is there between
the pleasures and the pains of Indra, the high chieftain
of the gods, and those of the lowliest animal ? The joys
of love and of life that the one derives, under the prompt-
ings of desire, from his goddess consort and from nectar,
the same are derived by the other from his lowly mate
and his (to human beings) filthy food. The terrors of
death again are as keen to the on^ as to the other.
Respective desire-and-karma makes a difference in their
surroundings and appearances. But the net result, and
the relativity of subject and object, enjoyer and enjoyed,
sufferer and cause of suffering, are the same.' ! The equality
Vairagya-Shataka t
P., CH. XVI] ACTION AND ACTIONLESSNESS 487
and sameness of all jlvas, not only in the sense of the
sameness of comparative results of long periods, life-
times, or cycles, but also at each moment of time, in the
matter of pleasure and pain, will also appear further,
when the nature of those two all-important constituents
of the life of the Self is carefully considered ; for there is,
indeed, a pleasure hiding in every pain, and a pain hiding
in every pleasure ; when the one is felt by the outer, the
opposite is felt by the inner man. 1 From the standpoint
of Brahma, all is the same, all is equal ; there is no differ-
ence at all, in kind as well as being ; for Brahma is indeed
the denial of all difference by the Universal Self. Why
should there be, how can there be, the reasonless horror
See. here, the f.n.s. on pp. 228-231, also. A very useful way of
interpreting the working of the Law of Karma, as psycho-physical cause-
effect or action-reaction, is to understand it in terms, not, of the plea-
sures or pains of the benefited or the victimised, but of the benf actors
or victimisers. A land-hungry or ' glory '-hungry pride-mad ' con-
queror ', slays some millions of men, of and through his armies ; a butcher
slaughters myriads of sheep and cattle ; a ravenous predacean kills and
devours thousands of herbivores He or it can scarcely be slain
millions or myriads or thousands of times' in as many births. Even
infinitely prolific and alt -wise Nature would find it very difficult to keep
and square the mathematical accounts correctly ; the more so, since, in
every new birth, new karma, would be added on to the old ! But the
(subjective) pleasure that the killer derived from the massacre, the
pleasure of gloating or money -or-land-gain or glory-gain, is easily counter-
balanced by a corresponding amount of (subjective) pain, experienced,
maybe in even a single body, amidst appropriate (objective) settings. Also
the pains of a prolonged malignant disease or of manglings and mutila- .
tions in an accident, may be psychically equivalent in the finer and
more sensitive organism of a human body to the death-pains of a thousand
lower animals.
' He who sees in-action in action and action in in- action, he is
truly wise, and he performs all actions (rightly and wisely), without
attachment.'
488 NONE GREATER OR LESSER [SC. OF
and hideousness, the nameless heart-harrowing, of one
really and permanently smaller, weaker, poorer, lower,
humbler, more pitiable or more contemptible, more tram-
pled upon and tortured, than another, greater, stronger,
richer, higher, prouder, more feared or more honoured
oppressor, tormenter, and gloater ? Where would be the
justification, if there were really such cruel injustice of
difference (as the enquirer intensely felt at the beginning
of his search), and not a mere appearance and play of
sage and saint, sovereign and soldier, slayer and slain,
oppressor and victim, servant and slave, high god and
lower man and lowlier, worm and plant and mineral ! ]
1 He who realises this becomes perfectly ' natural ' again, as a child ;
but on the higher level of the ' second ' childhood, through a ' second '
birth into the Ancient Wisdom,
3TO j the Sufi's tark-i-tark. ' The natural
state is best ' ; ' the wise man may behave, on occasion, like the very
unwise ; he no longer desires moksha, for he has found it ; he gives up
that which has enabled him to give up, as a thorn is thrown away after
having been used to extract a thorn from the foot, he abandons aband-
oning '. Purna-purusha, Mard-i-famGw, Insan-ul-k&mil, ' final,
complete, perfect man ' are the expressions which describe such a one.
Another aspect of the idea may be put thus : Every atom is a, as
well as the, whole universe. Every part is the whole. Every drop of
water is the same (in potential contents) as the whole ocean. Every the
tiniest image of the sun in every the tiniest globule of water is the whole
Sun. Every jfva is the whole Universal Self. The whole universe is one
infinite 'Pool's Paradise', bhrama; every jiva has its own 'fool's
paradise, (or rather ' paradis-es) ' ; and the individual ' fool's paradise ',
drama, is as real or as mythical as the Universal Fool's Paradise, and is
part of, or copy of. and contained in, the latter ; for all is and are the
Play of the Supreme Self's s a n - k a 1 p a, Will-Ideation.
For the thought of the spiritual equality, indeed same-ness, of all
jiva-souls, see pp. 329-330 supra.
The following passage from Bible, Eccl estates, 9-2, seems to be a
very near equivalent of the verse quoted and translated on p. 330 supra :
" All things come alike ta all. There is one " (i.e., the same) event to
P., CH. XVl] ENDLESS SPIRALS WITHIN ABSOLUTE 489
It has been said that the words of Bhartr-hari are true
in a sense. They are true in the deepest metaphysical
sense, which takes account of the whole of space, time,
and motion, in their totality. But the current view of the
fact of endless evolution and progress and difference is
also true, in the practical sense that deals with only a
part of space, time, and motion, instead of with the whole
of them. While one jlva cannot, in the net result of all
experiences, be really different from another jlva, for both
are equally Pratyag-atma, yet each atom is equally
necessarily different from every other atom. Hence what
we have is a constant sameness underlying endless
the righteous and to the wicked: to the good and clean, and to the
unclean ; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not ; as is
the good, so is the sinner". Yet always the warning holds that "all
things " includes consequences also, of good as well as evil actions.
The great Law of Analogy may be again pondered by the reader in
this reference. It establishes the similarity, equality, sameness, oneness,
of all.
I Brhad. C7^.,4, 4, 8-25.
1 Very subtle, atom-like, is this Ancient Path . . . See, by the mind,
that there is no many (no separates). He goes from death to death who
(and while he) sees (and clings to separatist) many (-ness). Atma, Self,
is Not-This, Not-This. He who knows that Self, sees all in It, and It in
all, and all as Self, sin touches him not, he crosses beyond all sins. He
is undecaying, undying, unf earing. Brahma is Fear-less, Brahma is
Fearless, Brahma is Fearless '.
490 NO BEGINNING AND NO ENDING [SC. OF
differences.! If there were actual limits to time, space,
motion ; if the World-Process did not stretch backwards
and forwards pseudo-infinitely ; if cycles and systems
were complete in themselves instead of being parts of
interminable chains in time, space, motion ; if the ' all r
of experiences could really be fixed in and at any point of
time, space, and motion ; then only, by striking the
balance of each and every life, we should literally find
a cipher as the result in each case. But there are no
such actual and absolute limits. Each life-thread
stretches endlessly through endless cycles and world-
systems. Hence there is no real beginning and no real
end to any life, but only endless apparent beginnings
and apparent ends, and no final and complete balancing
of any, in terms of the limited and concrete, is possible.
Also, as each life, taken individually, is necessarily and
actually at a different point of time, space, and motion
from every other, therefore no simultaneous balancing of
all is possible. Complete balancing and casting up of
accounts is possible only from the standpoint of the true
infinite and eternal, Pratyag-atma, wherein the whole of
time, space, and motion, and therefore the whole possible
life of each and every jlva, is summed up at once, now,
here, al-ways. From the standpoint of the limited, the
1 In this fact we find the reason why, though the chief of the gods and
the beast, Indra and swine, are both similar or even the same or equal
in respect, of nett pleasure and pain, yet, in the infinite complexities of
evolution and dissolution, in respect of details, there is very much more
4 long-circuiting ' and ' refinement ' between the desires and the satis-
factions of the one than of the other. Hence the thought and the
corresponding language of ' higher and lower ' is thoroughly justified,
for practical purposes.
P., CH. XVl] PSEUDO-INFINITE REPETITION 491
pseudo-infinite, on the contrary, there is an endless
alternation of progress and regress, evolution and involu-
tion on an ever-differing level, which is ever making a
difference of goal even in endless repetition, and thus
immortally keeping, before every jiva-atom, an ever higher
and higher * ascent ' after an ever deeper and deeper
' descent ' into ever grosser and grosser planes of matter ;
a thought that, despite the promise of ever-higher goals,
would prove most desolately wearisome, nay, most agonis-
ingly horrible, because of the corresponding ever deeper
* descents ' ; were it not that the constant summation of
the whole of the pseudo-infinitely complex World- Process
in the utter simplicity of the Absolute, makes the endless
succession of that World-Process the Lila, the Volun-
tary Play, that it really is, of Self ; and in which Play,
Tragedy and Comedy balance and cancel each other
completely.
Only Self, None Else, compels to anything or any
mood or state or circumstance. There is None Else to so
compel.
Therefore is the Process of the World a process of
pseudo-infinite repetition in pseudo-infinite change,
always curling back upon itself endlessly in pseudo-
infinite spirals. The jlva that, having reached the end
of the pravrtti arc of its particular cycle, thus realises the
utter equality, the utter sameness and identity, of all
jivas in the Supreme Self, amidst the utter diversity of
Not-Self, cries out at the overpowering wonder of it :
'The beholder seeth it as a marvel; the narrator
492 THE WONDER OF IT ALL! [SC. OF
speaketh it as a marvel ; the listener heareth it as a
marvel ; and yet after the seeing, speaking, and hearing
of it, none knoweth the complete detail of it ! ' ' And he
also cries out at the same time : * Where is there des-
pondency, where sorrow, unto him who seeth the One-
ness ! ' * He sees that all jivas rise and fall, lower and
higher, endlessly, in pseudo-infinite time, space, and
motion. He sees that the jlva that is a crawling worm
to-day will be the Ishvara of a great system to-morrow ;
and that the jlva that is the Ishvara of a system to-day
will descend into deeper densities of matter in a
greater system to-morrow, to rise to the still larger
Ishvara-ship of a vaster system in still another kalpa. 3
Nay, not only will be, in the one sense, but also is in
another sense. The single human being that is so weak
and helpless, even as a worm, in the solar system of the
Ishvara to whom he owes allegiance, is, at the same
time, in turn, veritable Ishvara to the tissue-cells, leuco-
cytes, and animalcules, that compose his organism ; and
the currents of his large life, unconsciously or consciously
to himself, govern those of the minute ones. The ruler
of a solar system, again, would at the same time, in turn,
be an infinitesimal cell in the unimaginably vast frame
Bhagavad-Glta, ii, 28.
2 I Isha Upanishat, 7.
3 3RE *J3WI Sffa Bfhad-Aranyaka, I, iv, 10.
P., CH. XVI] ' WHATEVER YE WISH, IS YOURS ' 493
of a Virat-Purusha, whose individuality includes countless
billions of such systems. And, throughout all this wonder,
the knower of Brahma also knows that there is no ruth-
less cruelty, no nightmare agony of helplessness in it, for,
at every moment, each condition is essentially voluntary,
the product of that utterly Free Will of Self (and there-
fore of all selves), which there is none else to bend and
curb in any way, the Will that is truly liberated from all
bondage. He knows that because all things, all jlvas
and all Ishvaras, belong to, nay, are in and are Self
already, therefore whatsoever a self wishes, that, with all
its consequences, will surely belong to it, if it only
earnestly wishes ; this earnest wish itself being the
essence of yoga, with its three coequal factors of bhakti,
jnana, and karma, correponding to ichchha, jnana, and
kriya respectively. Knowing all this, he knows, he
cognises Brahma ; and loving all selves as himself, desir-
ing their welfare as his own, and acting for their happi-
ness as he labours for his own, he realises and is
Brahma. 1 Such an one is truly mukta, free, delivered
from all bonds ; he knows and is the Ab-sol-ute, Self
ab-solved from all the limitations of Not-Self, the Self
wherein is ab-solu-tion from all doubt and error, all
wants and pains, all fevered restlessness and anxious
seeking. To him belongs the Everlasting Peace !
The book opens with Nachiketa's cry for the Knowledge
which would give him Peace through Freedom from Doubt
1 In the words of Bh&gavafa, the cognition of the identity of one*
self with all selves and All-Self is shudc^h-advaita ; the feeling of that
unity is bhav-acjvai^a ; the working for it is kriy-acjvaita.
494 THE GREAT QUESTIONING ANSWERED [SC. OF
and Fear. It ends with ancient verses which sum up that
Knowledge and bring the Peace. Nachiketa refused
steadfastly all the other finite and ephemeral things which
were offered to him to allure him away from the Infinite
and Eternal. Therefore he obtained, therefore he became
the Immortal, Infinite Eternal, and in It, he found all finite
things also. May all sincere seekers do likewise.
' AUM ! Such is the imperishable Brahma, such is
the unwaning Supreme. Knowing It, whatsoever one
desireth, that is his ! The One Ruler that abideth within
all beings as their Inner self, That maketh the one seed
manifold ! the wise who realise That One within them-
selves unto them belongeth the Eternal Joy, unto None-
Else, unto None-Else ! The Eternal One amidst the ever-
lasting Many, That maketh and f ulfilleth all the countless
desires of the Many they who behold That One in their
Self, unto them, and unto WJone-Else, belongeth the
Eternal Peace.' 1 ' This is the sole sense of the Veda,
such is the whole essence of all Experience that all
language declareth only Me and describeth Naught-Else ;
it imagineth the I in all kinds of forms and rejecteth
them all ; in the realising that all-Else-than-I is but My
Illusion, and in the Negation and abolition thereof, is
found the Final Peace '. a
' Thus did Nachiketa, having obtained from the
Lord of Death the Secret of Death, this Supreme Know-
ledge, and also the whole method of Yoga-practice,
become identified with Brahma, and free from all fear
1 Katha Upanishaj.
9 Bhagavaja, XI, xxi, 43.
P., CH. XVl] IMMORTAL PEACE ACHIEVED 495
and doubt and death. So too may every other earnest
seeker become free who acquires the Supreme Knowledge,
Adhyatma, only '.'
qt
, ^^i wfii: ^
m,
PEACE TO ALL BEINGS
1 Katka Upanishaf.
496 THE GUARDIANS OF OUR RACE [SC. OP
DEDICATION
A SOUL all broken with its petty pains !
The boundless glories of the Infinite !
How may the one, unfit, feeble, slow-moving,
Harrassed with all the burdens of its sins,
Tell rightly of the Other's Perfectness !
Yet, for the love of self that drave it forth,
A-searching on that ancient path of thought,
They tell is sharper than the sword-blade's edge,
In hope to find that which would bring some touch
Of solace to it in its weariness
Because that love of self hath gained its goal,
And uttermost self-seeking found the Self,
And so grown love of Self and of all selves,
It drave that soul unworthy, full of sin,
But full of love, yea, full of agony
Amidst its new-found peace, that any self,
Thinking itself as less than the Great Self,
Should suffer pang of helpless littleness
To cry abroad and set down what it found
In words, too poor, too weak, and too confused,
That yet, eked out by the strong earnestness
Of other searching souls, may, with the blessing
Of the compassioning Guardians of our race,
Bring to these seeking souls some little peace !
Ye that have suffered, and have passed beyond
Our human sorrowing, and yet not passed,
For Ye are suffering it of your own will,
So long as any suffer helplessly !
P., CH, XVI] MOTHER-HEARTED HIERARCHS 497
Ye Blessed Race of Manus, Rshis, BucJ4has,
Gods, Angels, mother-hearted Hierarchs !
Christs, Prophets, Saints! Ye Helpers of our race
Ye Holy Ones that suffer for our sake !
I lay this ill-strung wreath of bloomless words,
But with the hands of reverence, at your feet,
That, filled with freshness by. their streaming life,
And consecrated by their holiness,
And cleansed of all the soiling of my sins,
They may bespread their fragrance o'er the world,
And bring Self : knowledge and Self-certainness,
And quenchless joy of all-embracing Self,
To all that suffer voiceless misery.
Peace unto all, sweetness, serenity,
The peace that from this doubtless knowledge flows
That there is naught beyond our very Self,
The Comman Self of old and young and babe
No Death, nor other Power out of Me,
To hurt or hinder, hearten us or help
Knowledge that all this Process of the World,
Its laugh and smile, its groan and bitter tears,
Are all the Self's, My own, Pastime and Play
Knowledge that all is Self, and for the Self,
And by the Self, whence is Unshaken Peace !
32
INDEX OF WORKS REFERRED TO
INOTE. Alteration of page-numbers in these Indices, for the sake of
the new edition, represents the very heavy labor of love of Miss Preston
and Mr. Henry Van Zeijst. To them, deep gratitude of author and
readers are due. It is true that the Indices are not quite up to date ; for
new books quoted (few), and old books newly referred to (often) in the
large additions made in this new edition, have not been referred to in
these Indices. But this, it is trusted will not seriously inconvenience
readers. The Index of Proper names has also not been enlarged ;
because the new matter in the text contains very few additional names.
The Glossary of Samskr.t words has also been left unenlarged for the
same reason. To bring all these up to date would have taken many
weeks of heavy labor for me, which I am ill fitted for now at my age $
and the publishers, the Theosophical Publishing House, are naturally
anxious that publication of the book should not be delayed longer. It
has been already three whole years in the press, because of the abnormal
conditions created by World War II and its aftermath ; in normal times
it could have been brought out in three months, or at most six.
BHAGAVAN DAS].
Aditya-hrdaya-stotra, a hymn to the Sun, in Bhavishy-oftara
Purana, 365.
Ananda-Lahart, a hymn to Shakti, by Shankara, 219.
Ancient Wisdom, by Annie Besant, 389.
Anubhuti-prakasha-sar-oddhGra, a small work on Ve^lanta,
115.
Anu-gtta, 256, 257, 291, 365, 373.
Aumk&ra-sarva3va, 235.
Bergson, by Wildon Carr, 281.
Bhagavata Parana, also called Vishqu-Bhagavata or
Shrtmad-Bhagavata to distinguish it from tyevl-
Bhagavata, 33, 50, 114, 152, 161, 201,202,255,257,
260, 264, 271, 301, 317, 345, 352, 360, 398, 412, 429,
462, 474, 483, 494.
500 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Bhagavad-Glta ; see Glta.
Bhamati, by Vacbaspati, a commentary on Shankara's
Shanraka-Bhashya on Brahma-sutra, 22, 23, 83.
Bhavishya-Puratia, 456.
Brahma-sutra, aphorisms by Vyasa on the VSdanta
system of philosophy, 207, 256, 328.
Brhad-aranyaka Upanishat, 2, 24, 50, 85, 113,266,307,
341, 409, 492.
Charaka-samhita, a work on medicine, 28, 32, 282, 378.
Chhandogya Upanishat, 47, 93, 109, 112, 177, 307, 410.
f>evl-Bhagavata Purana, 26, 47, 114, 173, 191,193,218.
240, 243, 244, 250-256, 269, 318, 370, 436.
Dignity of Man, by Fichte, 84.
Drama of Love and Death, by Edward Carpenter, 440.
Dream Problem, by Dr. Ram Narayan, 29.
Durga-sapta-shatl, a part of Markandeya Pur ana, des-
cribing avataras of Shakti, 167, 251.
Electrical Theory and the Problem of the Universe, by
Tunzelman, 390.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 27, 383.
Ether, Matter and Motion, by Dolbear, 322, 382.
Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, by
J. S. Mill, 88.
Fichte, by Adamson, 79.
General Physiology, by Max Verworn, 194, 336, 342, 347,
354, 387, 409.
Gtta or Bhagavad-Glta, 6, 38, 39, 90, 116, 173, 191-194,
209, 229, 242, 245, 250, 256-260, 263, 269, 318, 350,
415, 461, 471, 487, 492.
Gopatha-Brahmaqa, part of Atharva-V6da, 110.
Goraksha-Samhita, 249.
Grammar of Science, by Karl Pearson, 47, 220.
Guptavatj, a commentary on jpurga-sapta-shatl, by Bhgs-
kara-raya, 167, 251.
INDEX OF WORKS REFERRED TO 501
Handbook of Chemistry, by Ostwald, 91
History of Philosophy, by Hegel, 77.
Ueberweg, 65.
,, ,, Schwegler, 43, 57, 65, 80, 82, 89,
174, 403.
Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, by Caird, 69.
Isha Upanishat, 148, 161, 492.
JHana-garbha, 165, 482.
Kalagni-rudra Upanishat, 248.
Kama-sutra by Vatsyayana, 269
Kapila-G\ta, 370.
Katha Upanishat, 1, 33, 108, 161, 325, 494.
Kena Upanishat,' 32, 161, 341.
Machinery of the Universe, The, by Dolbear, 437.
Maha-bharata, Epic of the Great War between Kauravas
and Pandavas, by Vyasa, 235, 271, 282, 283, 291, 318,
335, 373, 388.
Mahima-stuti, a hymn to Shiva, by Pushpa-cjanta, 116, 228,
237, 365.
Malinl-vijaya, 249.
Mandukya Upanishat, 109, 161.
Mantra-shastra, 235.
Manu, 2, 41/151,. 228, 257.
Matsya Purana, 455.
Monadology, by Leibnitz, 180.
Mukti-sopana, by Goraksha, 250.
Mundaka Upanishat, 352.
Nandikeshvara-Karika, 159, 235.
New Psychology, The, by Scripture, 91.
Nirniamba Upanishat, 15.
Nirukta, a work on the principles of Veda-exegesis, by
Yaska, 250.
Nyaya-Sutra, the aphorisms of the Nyaya System of philo-
sophy," by Gautama, 261, 288, 340, 428, 479.
Nyaya-bhashya, commentary on the above, by Vatsyayana,
32, 261, 266, 479.
S02 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Nyaya-vartika-tafparya, annotations by Vachaspati, on a
gloss by u4yotakara on the above.
Nyaya-kosha, a dictionary of the technical terms of the Nyaya
philosophy, by Bhimacharya, 300.
Occult Chemistry, by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater,
399.
Origin and Nature of Life, The, by Dr. B. Moore, 180.
Pancha-dashl, a work on the VSdanta System of philosophy,
Vidy-ararjya, 7, 9, 25, 222, 377.
Pancht'karana-vivarana, a small treatise on the doctrine of
the quintuple compounding of the primal elements, 377.
Paramartha-sara, a work of the Kashmir Shaiva School of
philosophy, by Abhinava-gupta, 166.
Political Ideals, by C. D. Burns. 349.
Pragmatism, by Wiliiam James, 53.
Pranava-vada, 40, 121, 166, 167, 186, 200, 235, 317, 370,
376, 391, 405, 438, 440, 453.
Prashna Upanishat. 50, 108, 268.
Principles of Science, by Jevons, 180.
Psychology, by Hoffding, 7, 9, 11, 222, 227, 271, 380.
' William James, 33, 53.
' Herbert Spencer, 272.
James Ward, 27, 383, 339.
Psychology of Sex, by Havelock Ellis, 204.
Puranas, ' histories ' of world-evolution and dissolution, by
many Vyasa-s, 76, 89, 115, 120, 159, 164, 235, 236, 239,
253, 263, 264, 271, 290, 315, 323.
Purusha-sukta, the great Vedic hymn to the Macrocosmic
Man, the Supreme Self, 350.
Rahasya-traya, 251.
Ramayana, the Epic of the History of the Solar Race of
Kings, and especially of Rama and of his war with
Ravaga, by Valmiki, 235.
RBmayana (in Hiniji), by Tulasi Das, 328.
Replies to Criticisms, in Essays, by Herbert Spencer, 69.
Response in the Living and the Non-Living, by Sir J. C
Bose, 336.
INDEX OF WORKS REFERRED TO 503
Rg-veja, 148, 152.
Rubaiyat, by Omar Khayyam, 12.
Sankhya-karika, 41, 53, 235, 256, 260, 266.
Sankhya-tattva-kaumudf, 260.
Sankshepa Shariraka, a work on Vedanta, by Sarvajfia
Muni, 81, 191.
Sankshepa Tik&, commentary on above by Macjhusudana
Sarasvati, 85, 191.
Sarva-sara Upanishat, 15, 152.
Saundarya-Lahan, a hymn to Shakti, by Shankara, 148.
Science and the Infinite, by S. T. Klein, 312.
Science of Knowledge, by Fichte, 83, 174.
Science of Peace (First Edition), 121.
Science of Religion or Sanatana Vaidika Qharma, by
Bhagavan Das, 142.
Science of Social Organization or The Laws of Manu, by
Bhagavan Das, 142.
Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky, 309, 322, 345, 375, 389.
Secret of Hegel, by Stirling, 43.
Shabda-kalpa-druma, 268.
Shariraka-Bhashya, commentary by Shankara on the
Brahma-Sutra of Vyasa, 8, 34, 49, 71, 84.
Shaiva Agama, 236.
Shandilya, 271.
Shiva Purana, 248.
Shiva-Sutra-vim arshiqi, a work of the Kashmir Shaiva
school of philosophy, by Vasu Gupta and Kshemaraja,
165, 249, 257, 260, 262, 264.
Shvet-ashvatara Upanishat, 153, 209.
Spanda-karika-vivrti, by Rflma Kantha, 249, 262, 264, 269.
Story of Life's Mechanism, by H. W. Conn, 342.
Taitiiriya Upanishat, 47, 93, 109.
faniraloka, 268.
Tantra-shastra, a class of works dealing with ' secret *
"sciences" and arts, 110, 233, 247, 370.
TQra-sara -Upanishat, 109, 234.
Tatparya-prakSsha, commentary on Yoga-Vasishtha, 147.
Tattva-sandoha, 269.
504 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Text-book to Kant, by Stirling, 65.
Theosophist, 29.
Thesaurus, by Roget, 142.
The Proposed University at Indore, by Patrick Geddes, 18.
Tilaka-Tika, commentary on De*vi Bhagavata, by Nila-
kantha, 252.
Tlka, on Yoga-bhashya, by Vachaspati, 455.
Tripad-vibhuti-maha-narayana Upanishat, 377, 435.
Two New Worlds, by Fournier D'Albe, 391.
Upanishats, a class of mystical and philosophical treatises
forming part of the Vedas, 96, 111, 120, 461.
Upaskara, commentary on Vaisheshika-sutra, by Shankara
Mishra, 33.
Vairagya-shataka, by Bhartr-hari, 486.
Vaisheshika-sutra, 33, 54, 261.
Vayu Purana, 455.
Vedanta-sara, 9, 222, 252, 256, 282.
Vedas, 40, 54, 111, 115, 200, 243, 263.
Vinaya-patrika, a collection of hymns, in Hindi, by Tulasi
Das, 326.
Vishqu-Purana, 29.
What is Thought ?, by Stirling, 78, 81, 82, 89.
Yoga-sutra, Aphorisms by PataSjali on the Yoga System
of philosophy and practical or applied psychology, 109,
161, 184, 288, 333, 360, 378, 403, 435, 455.
Yoga-bhashya, commentary on above, by Vyasa, 33, 175,
259, 290, 301, 378, 462.
Yoga- Vasishtha, a large work, in verse, ascribed to Valmiki,
on mystical and Vecjanta philosophy, 2, 3, 32, 38, 75,
115, 147, 164, 180, 181, 213, 227, 262, 312, 342, 377,
391, 398, 435, 440, 461, 484.
Zadig et Micromegas, Voltaire, 376.
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES
Abhinava-gupta, 165.
Adamson, 79.
AdvaiJa-V&Janta, the name of a system of philosophy, 52, e
Agni, 250, 263."
Ahriman, 9.
Albrecht, 94.
Ananta, 317.
Aniruddha, 271.
Aristotle, 94.
Bacon, 94.
Balarama, 271.
Boehme, 94.
Bergson, 19, 214, 280, 281, 286.
Besant, Annie, 382, 399.
Bhagavati, a name and form of Shakti, 115.
Bhartr-hari, 486, 489.
Bhava, a name and form of Shiva, 2, 236.
Bhavani, a name and form of the consort or shakti of
Shiva, 237.
Bhim-acharya, 300.
Bhushundi, 164.
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, 389.
Bose, Sir Jagacjisha Chandra. 336.
Brahma, 2, 170, 193, 236, 238, 249, 251, 290, 318, 319,
323, 377.
Brahmi, 249.
Bruno, 94.
Burns, C. D., 349.
Caird, 69.
Capes, The, 291.
Carpenter, Edward, 440.
506 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Carr, W., 281.
Chaldean votaries, 454.
Chandra, a name of the moon, 250.
Chandl, a name and form of the Shakti of Shiva, 167.
Charaka, author of a work on medicine, which is known by
the same name ; said by tradition to be another name of
PataSjali, 28, etc.
Chatterji, J. C., 165.
Descartes, 22, 94.
Dolbear, 322, 382, 437.
Durga, 240.
Pvaita-Vedanta, the name of a system of philosophy, 48, etc.
Eckhart, 94.
Ellis, Havelock, 204.
Eros, 271, 304.
Euclid, 40.
Fichte, 66, 67, 68, 77-88, 94, 95, 174, 403.
Fournier d'Albe, 391.
Fresnel, 386.
Gargyayaga, 40, 121.
Garuda, 317, 318.
Gaur!, 236, 249, 318.
Gayatri, the name of a Rg-V6da-verse, being a prayer to or
invocation of the Sun, 111, 243.
Geddes, Prof. Patrick, 18.
Goraksha, 250.
Gnostic Works, 112-
Greek Philosophers, 94, 410.
Green, 27.
Hamilton, 69.
Hamsa, 323.
Kara, a name and form of Shiva, 236.
Hari, a name and form of Vishmi, 2.
Hegel, 66-68 ; his main thesis, 69-71 ; his petitio principii,
74-87 ; his great error, 151.
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 507
Hoffding, 7, 9, 11, 27, 214, 222, 227, 271, 380.
Hormuzd, 9.
Htibbe-Schleiden, Dr., 386.
Hume, 57, 160.
Huygens, 386.
Indra, 46?263, 341, 486.
James, William, 33, 53, 217, 261.
Jevons, 180.
Jishrjm, a name and form of Vishnu, 291.
Kabbalistic Works, 112.
Kabir, Indian religious reformer, saint and poet, 464.
Kala, a name and form of Time and also of Shiva, 316.
Kali, a name and form of the consort -Shakti of Shiva, 237,
251, 318.
Kama, 233; Kama-Eros, 271, 304.
Kanada, 467.
Kandarpa, a name and form of Kama, 233.
Kant, 58-66 ; fundamental defect of, 54, 213, 369, 469.
Keshava, a name and form of Vishnu, 326.
Klein, S. T., 312.
Kroeger, 83, 174.
Krshna, 38, 194, 245, 271.
Krug, 73, 179, 354.
Ladd, Prof., 380.
Lakshml, chief name and form of the consort-Shakti of
Vishnu, 233, 251, 318, 319.
Lee, F.S.', 194.
Leibnitz, 94, 180.
Ma, a name of Lakshmi, 234.
Madhu-sudana Sarasvatt, 85.
Maha-Kala, a name and form of Shiva, the " Great Dark
Time or Mover, 11 317.
Maha-Kall, 167.
Maha-Lakshml, 167.
MahS-Sarasvati, 167.
508 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Mahesha, a name and form of Shiva, 2.
Maitreyi, 2.
Mansel, 69.
Manu, see Manu.
Markandeya, 164.
McTaggart, Prof. J. E., 83.
Mill,J.S., 88.
Mitra, a name and form of the Sun, 263.
Mukunda, a name and form of Vishnu, 115.
Mystics, 94.
Nachiketa, 1, 2, 36, 108.
Narayana, a name and form of Vishnu, 291.
Nayyayikas, 300.
Neo-Platonists, 94.
Newton, 386.
NidSgha, 29.
Nila-Kantha, 252, 318.
North Pole, 291.
Nyaya, name of a system of philosophy, 53, etc.
Omar Kfcayyam, 19.
Ostwald, 91.
Pajanjali, 109.
Pearson, Karl, 47, 220.
Pfltiger, 349.
Plato, 94.
Pradyumna,271.
Prajapati, 35, 47.
Pra^ava, a name of AUM ; Etymological explanation of the
word, 109, 117, 233, etc.
Preyer, 348, 352.
Qarin, a Sufi poet, 465.
Radha, 'that form of Shakti, prarja, nerve force, vital energy,
which energises the motor organs, 240.
Rama, 2. " '
Rama-Kantha, 249.
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 509
Rambha, 436.
Ram Narayana, Dr., 29.
bhu, 29.
Roget, 142.
Rosicrucians, 93.
Rudra, 236, 251.
Sankarshana-Bala-rama, 271.
Sankhya, the name of a system of philosophy, 9, etc.
SarasvatI, 231, 318.
Satya-kama, 108.
Scheffler, 94.
Schelling, his statement of the law of relativity, 66, 68, 77,
79, 89.
Schopenhauer, 94.
Schwegler, 74, 83, 84, 89, 469.
Scripture, 91.
Sisyphus, 90.
Shakti, 49.
Shambhu, a name and form of Shiva, 291.
Shankara, a name and form of Shiva, 234.
Shankar-acharya, 19, 71, 84, 148.
Shankara Mishra, 33.
Shesha, 317, 319.
Shiva, 170, 193, 236, 237, 244, 248, 251, 253, 290,
317, 318.
Shri-Harsha, 31.
Smara, name and form of Kama, 304.
Spencer, Herbert, 69, 94, 272.
Spinoza, 94.
Stout, 27, 214.
Sufi poets, 462.
Surya, a name of an aspect of the Sun, 250, 263.
Tantalus, 90.
Titans, 56.
Tulasl Das, 326, 327.
Tunzelman, 390.
Ueberweg, 65.
510 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Urna Haimavati, a name and form of Mula-prakrti, ' that
which is not and melts away like snow ' ; also a name
and form of Shiva's consort, 341.
VSchaspaJi, 455.
Vaish6shika, the name of a system of philosophy, 33, etc.
Vaishgavl, a name and form of the shakti of Vishnu, 249.
Varuija, 263.
Vasishtha, 2, 139, 324.
Vasudeva-Krshga, 271.
Vatsyayana, 269.
Vedanta, the name of a system of philosophy, 4, etc.
Verworn, Max, 194, 336, 342, 347, 354, 387, 409, 415.
Vishnu, 2, 47, 170, 193, 213, 238, 249,251,271,291,317,
318, 319.
Vishvamitfra, 139.
Voltaire, 376.
Vyasa, 328.
Ward, James, 27, 189, 383, 428.
Weismann, 24.
Yajffa-valkya, 2.
Yama, 1, 46, 108.
Yoga, the name of a system of philosophy, 33, etc.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS
Abhasa, ' illusory appearance, 1 11.
Abhasa -vatfa, * the doctrine ' that the world-process is an
1 illusion/ another name for Advaita-Vedanta, 11.
Abhi-mana, 'egoistic desire, pride, 1 266, 270.
Abhimani-devata, the * individualising ' and ensouling ' deity/
the non-human jlva functioning as, or in, a nature-force
or nature-phenomenon, 263.
Abhi-nivesha, tenacity, obduracy, clinging to separate indi-
vidualised life, will-to-live, 233, 239.
Abhi-sandhi, determination, intention, 266,271.
Abhi-vyakta, clearly manifested, defined, distinct, 285.
Abhyasa, practice, perseverance, repetition, 195.
A-chit, ' un-conscious ' ; inanimate ; material ; matter, 49, 173.
Adana, taking back, 238.
Adas, the somewhat distant * this,' 41.
Adhara, ' that which supports, 310.
Adhi-aksha, overlord, oversee, 32.
Adhi-bhautika, made of the physical bhutas, i.e., sensable
materials, 440.
Adhikari, the person entitled, having the right, 53.
Adho-gamana, going downward, 381.
Adhyasa, ' super-imposition * or reflection of the attributes of
one thing on or in another thing, 11, 204, 340.
Adhyasa- vada, the doctrine that the world-process is a dream-
image, ' super-imposed ' upon the Universal Conscious-
ness by Itself, 11.
Adhyajma-vicjya, ' the science of the Self f : subjective
science ; psychology, 47.
Adhyavasaya, ascertained knowledge, 266, 270.
Adi, ' beginning, 1 the ' first ' tattva, 312, 376, 438.
-tattva, ' the first element ' (of matter), next but one
above akasha in gradation of subtlety, 376, 438.
512 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
A-dvaita, ' non-dual ' ; non-dualistic ; monistic, 52, 84-88,
" 194,238,493.
Agama, ' that which has come down,' a traditional school of
religio-philosophical worship, 236.
Agni, ' fire, 1 the root-element of matter corresponding to the
organ of vision, 411, 438.
Aham, ' I ' ; Ego; Self, 119, 158, 191, 238, 285, 308, 332, 333
337,344-7,351,402. -
Aham-dhiji, I -consciousness,' individualist-feeling, (as
shaktO, 264.
Aham-EtaJ, 141, 392, etc.
Aham-Etat-Na, 119, 139, 146, 200, 208, 225, 238,
325, etc. t t t
Aham-kara, ' I -ness,' ' Egoism,' Ego-ising, self -referring,
selfish desire,' 56, 191, 215, 228, 255, 256, 260, 264, 376,
432, 458.
AjBana, non- Knowledge, 'nescience/ tamas, 257, 258.
Akasha, ' space ' ; ' the luminous ' ; the root-element or plane
of matter corresponding to the organ of hearing and the
quality of sound, 85, 159, 173, 376, 377, 282, 389, 395,
398,411,438.
A-kasmika, 'without a why,' causeless, accidental, 371.
A-khanda*, ' without parts,' 140, 285.
Akshara-mudra, J kind f acrosti m
Akshara-mushti, J
Akunchana, ' contraction,' 381.
A-lasya, ' laziness,' 257.
Alochana, sensation,' 269.
A-mitra, 'non-friend,' foe, 175.
Amsha-guna-kala, 360.
A-mukhya, ' not-chief/ minor, subordinate, 299.
A-mukhya-karapa, ' un-principal cause ' ; a minor or sub-
sidiary cause, 299.
A-murJa, formless, 285, 290.
An-aham, ' NotJ ' Non-Ego, 119.
Anadi-pravaha, ' beginningless (and endless) flow,' 181.
An-adi-pravaha-safta, ' beginningless-flow-existence/ ever-
lastingness, 34.
An-dmaya, ' not-sick' 257.
Ananda, 4 bliss,' 167-169, 191, 238, 380-1, 383, 401.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 513
Ananda-ghana, 1 * compacted bliss.' ) 139 4Q -
Anan<Ja-maya, / composed of bliss, j ' '
An-anyat, ' not-other, 1 457.
An-artha-vda, a counsel of evil, a mischievous doctrine, 291.
An-atma, * Not-Self,' 148, 173^
Anava-mala, ' atom-dust, 1 the ' stain ' of ' atoms f created by
desire, 264.
Andolana, * swinging ' ; revolving, weighing, pondering or
balancing in the mind ; cogitation ; agitation, 381.
An-idam, ' not-this,' 115, 116.
A-nirdeshya, ' not to be pointed out,' indefinable, 139.
A-nirvachaniya, ' indescribable,' 148.
Aniti, ' breathes,' contracts and expands, 262.
A-nitya, ' impermanent,' 211.
An-rta, 'not right'; false; untrue; unlawful ; unrighteous,
*173, 192.
Anrta-jada-duhkha, unreal-unliving-miserable, 192.
Anta, 'end,'" 315.
Anfah, ' inner,' 307.
Antah-karana, ' the inner instrument, 176, 260, 264, 438.
Antah-karana-chatushtaya, the four aspects, faculties, func-
tions of the inner organ,' 261.
Antara, * interval ' ; middle ; interspace ; difference, 306.
Antar-yflmi, * inner watcher or ruler ' ; the Self, 164.
Antya-sdmanya, the ' final ' or highest genus, 468.
Antya-vishesha, the final or lowest ' particular ' or singular,
468, 470.
Anu, ' ion,' atom, 81, 260, 262, 263, 264, 389, 398, 471, 475.
Anu bhava, Anu-bhuti, presentation, experience, ' becoming
like ' the object, 32.
An-ud buddha, sub-conscious, or supra-conscious, not risen
into waking consciousness, above or below the threshold
of consciousness, dormant, un-awake, 285.
An-upSdaka, ' receiver-less ' ; the root-element of matter next
above akSsha, so-called because there is as yet no organ
or ' receiver ' developed by humanity for it, 376, 438.
Anu*san<Jhna, tracing, following out, connecting before and
after, 270.
Anu-vyavasflya, ' ap-perception,' 424.
Anvaya, ' concomitant presence/ 473.
33
514 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Anyat-anyat, ' other of other/ ' other than other,' 150.
Apakshepana, ^casting away/ 381.
Apara-paksha, 'other side or wing,' 306.
Apara-p&rshva, ' other side or flank,' 306.
Apard-prakrti, 'other or un-higher, i.e., lower nature,'
245,263.
Apara-visheha, ' lowest particular,' 285, 470.
A-pari-nmi, * unchanging,' 163.
A-par-oksha, ' not away from the eye ' ; direct ; immediate,
41, 202, 247.
Apas or flpah, ' waters ' ; the root-element of matter corres-
ponding to the organ of taste, 376, 382, 389, 390.
Apa-sarpaija, ' moving away,' 322.
A-paurusheya, ' non-human,' ' super-human,' 41.
A-praksha, 'non-illumination,' absence of light, dark-
ness, 257.
A-pravrttij ' in-activity,' listlessness, 257.
A-priti,' dis-satisfaction, 260.
Arambha, 'origin,' commencement, 257, 312.
Arambha-vacja, 'the theory or doctrine of a beginning/
i.e., creation of the world by a Personal God, 7, 11, 222.
Artha, * desired substance ' (and its equivalents and allies,
(Jravya, bala, bhakti, ichchha) 254, 255.
Artha-vflija, allegory, parable, metaphor, 291.
A-sa<Jhflrana, 'uncommon/ special, 371.
A-sa<jhflrana-nimitta, " uncommon cause or condition ' ; special
or chief cause or condition, 299.
A-samavyi-kdrana, ' non- concomitant cause/ 299.
A-sat, 'non-existent/ ' un-true/ ' not-good/ 70, 182, 183.
A-shama, restlessness, 257.
Ashvattha, one of the three chief varieties of great Indian
fig-trees, the pipal, 415.
Asmi, 'am/ 119, 208, 238, 239.
Asmi-Ja, ' am-ness/ the feeling that ' I am ' a separate indi-
vidual, sense of separate -self -existence, 229, 234, 239,
264.
A-sura, a class of non- human beings ; also a race of human
beings ; (some think the Assyrians were so named in
the Vedas), 398.
A tana, wandering, 381.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 515
Atati, foes about, 262.
Atita, 'past, 1 transcendent, ]39.
Ati-vflhika, the " transmigrating ' body ; ideal or mental body,
made of thought or imagination, as opposed to the physi-
cal or a(Jhi-bhautika body, 440.
Atma, Self (Gr. ' atom ' or ' etymon '), 28, 59, 84, 85, 153,
160, 161, 164, 171, 261-265, 291, 292, 326, 338, 409.
Atrna-bucjcjhi-manas, the Self the Universal mind or pure
reason the individualising mind, 214, 291, 440.
Atma-cjharana, ' self -maintenance,' 367.
Atrna-nubhava, ' self-experience,' apperception, 424.
Atma-vasha, ' self-dependent,' 229.
Atma-vi(Jya, ' the Science of the Self,' 247.
Atra, ' here ' 306.
Aty-ant-a-sat, ' extremely non-existent ', utterly non-existent,
pure non-being, 87.
A-U-M, 1, 108, 117, 121, 200, 494, 495, 497.
Avarana, ' enveloping ' ; veiling, screening, covering up,
blinding, 238, 239, 257, 258, 260, 271.
Avarta-bhramana, * spiral motion,' 322.
Avasana, ' end ', completion, termination, 312.
Avashyaka-ta, ' helplessness ', necessity, 217.
Avastha, state, condition, 247.
Avatara, ' descent,' ' incarnation,' an incarnate deity, 264.
A-vidya, ' non-knowledge ' ; nescience ; ignorance ; error, 168,
175, 218, 226, 234, 241, 242, 245, 246, 253, 258.
Avi<Jya-Vi(Jya-Mahavi4ya, error-truth-great-Science (or Wis-
dom), 254.
Avi$ya-kama-karma f ' Error-desire-action.' 67.
A-vikarl, ' immutable,' 164.
A-vyakta, ' unmanifested ' ; undefined ; vague ; unmanifested
or root- Matter; (sometimes also) unmanifested Spirit, 159,
_ _ 173, 194, 285, 458.
Ayama, ' extent, 1 extension, length, 332.
Ayana, ' going/ motion, 302, 319, 332.
Ayu, ' lifetime/ 332.
A-yuga-pat, ' not two together/ ' not simultaneous/ at differ-
ent times, successively, 285.
Ba<J<Jha, ' bound/ fettered, 229.
516 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Bahih, ' outside ' ; outer, external, 307.
Bahish-karafla, * outer instrument,* the external or physical
sensor and motor organs, 176.
Bala, strength, power, 254.
Bancjha or ban (Jh ana, * bondage/ 315.
Bhakti, love, devotion, 254, 453, 459.
Bhakti-Yoga, ' the path of devotion,' 255.
Bhava, existence, being, thought, emotion, feeling, thing,
intention, 284, 378.
Bhav a<Jvaita, realisation of non-separateness or unity of all
life and all living beings in emotion, by universal
love, 493.
Bhflvand-cjardhya, consolidation, condensation, ' hardening *
of * thought ' or imagination, 228.
Bhavishyat, ' that which will be ' ; future, 313.
Bheda, 'dividing 1 , division ; separateness ; difference, 173.
Bhe<Ja-mula, * the root or source of separateness,' 173.
Bhrama, Bhranfi, wandering, ' gyrating,' moving round and
round, 159, 210, 233.
Bhuh-bhuvah-svah, the three worlds or planes, physical-
astral-mental, or physical-astro-mental-causal, 250.
Bhuta, * what has become ' ; being ; creature ; element, 284,
313,376,458.
Bhut-a(Ji; the ' first being ' or ' the originator of the (material)
elements,' 376.
Bhut-a(Ji, ahamkara regarded as originator of the five tattvas,
256, 284, 376.
Bhuvah, the astral world, 250.
Bija, ' seed ' ; potency ; 186.
Bija-mantra, ' seed-idea,' principle, 285.
Bindu, ' point/ drop, 308.
Bodha, understanding, 270.
Brahma-charya, the pursuit or storing, of (a) knowledge, (b)
the vital seed, (c) the ' Infinite,' 108.
Brahma, ' immensity, expansion, or extension f ; the Absolute,.
the Supreme, 35, 41, 84-8, 93, 108-9, 113, 115-6, 138-
40, 150-64, 167, 172, 176-7, 192, 202, 209, 210, 219,
264, 307, 318, 320, 350, 375, 401, 418, 458, 478, 487, 493.
Brahm-anda, an egg of the infinite, an orb in space, a globe, a
heavenly body, a solar system, 176, 291, 411, 438.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 517
Brahma-vidya, the ' Science of the Infinite,' Metaphysic,
41, 247.
Brahma- Vishnu-Shiva, 251, 318.
Brh, ' to grow or expand, 1 307.
Buddhi, ' apprehending ' ; consciousness ; knowledge ; deter-
mining intelligence ; reason ; the pure or determinate
reason; universal mind, supra-consciousness, 44-5, 116,
144, 159, 160, 174, 213-15, 239-41, 244, 246, 255, 260,
280, 283-25, 382, 424, 428, 432, 438-40, 458.
Buddhi-bodha, * cognition of cognition,' apperception, 424.
Buddhi (rnahat)-ahankara-manas (and their equivalents and
allies), ' intellection-emotion-volition,' 255, 256, 260-22,
269-71, 283-5, 289-290.
Buddhi-manas, ' Universal mind and individual mind ' and
allied or derivative pairs of opposites, 285, 290, 296.
Buddhi-tattva, another name for the anupadaka-tatfrva, 376,
382, 438.
Chakra, circle, cycle, 200, 316, 322.
Chakra-vat, 'like a disc,' rotatory, 316, 322.
Chalana, ' going, 1 movement, 319.
Chanchalya, restless motion, 260.
Chara, application, practice, 285.
Chetana, consciousness, 270, 285.
Chetayati, brings or calls to mind, remembers, 190, 270.
Chid-akasha-chitt-akasha-mah-akasha, the space of Consci-
ousness and the space of mind and the great space, 398.
Chid-ghana, ' compressed or compacted consciousness ' ;
plenum of consciousness, 139, 400.
Chit, consciousness, ' awareness,' -49, 167-9, 189-91, 238,
270. 400.
Chiti, Universal Consciousness, 189, 270.
Chitta, the individual mind as summation of bu(J(Jhi-ahamkara-
manas, 45, 189, 213-5, 258-64, 269-71, 282, 285, 290,
447.
Chitta-vimukti, the emancipation of (or from the individual)
mind; change of attitude from egoism to altruistic
universalism, 453.
Daiva, ' divine,' ordained by the divine, destiny, fate, 228-9.
Daivi, 'divine,' 245-6.
518 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Paivl-maya, ' divine illusion, 1 245.
Daivl-prakrti, ' divine nature ' : energy, 245-6, 263.
Dama, restraint of the senses, 12, 202.
Darshana, * seeing,' view, point of view, doctrine, philosophy,
5, 364.
Deha, body, 285.
Desna, ' that which is pointed out ' ; direction ; space ; place ;
country, 147, 301.
Desha-Kala-avastha, *| time-place-circumstance,
Desha-Kala-Kriya, V time-place-action,
Desna- Kala-nimitta or hetu, J time-space-causality,
149, 247, 301, 331.
Desh-atita, ' beyond space, 1 transcending space ; spaceless, 140.
Deva, * shining being/ 'deity/ a (non-human) spirit, 41, 84,
185, 263, 398, 448.
Deva-chan, ' place of the gods/ the heaven-world, 448.
Dharma, ' the holder/ * the supporter ' ; law ; duty ; religions ;
function ; attribute, 54, 371.
pharma-megha, a mystic condition of tranced and blissful
meditation in which knowledge of the laws which govern
and hold together the world-process, rains in upon the
soul, (compare, " the cloud over the Sanctuary " of the
mystics), 441, 457.
Dharana, holding the mind to one selected object and place
(in the body), 285.
Phriti, retentiveness, 291.
Phyafla, incessant contemplation, 285.
Dikshd, initiation, consecration, dedication, 258.
Dishta, the ' destined/ 229.
Dravya, * the movable ' or c the liquifiable * ; substance ; thing,
191, 193, 254, 369, 379, 381-3, 389-90, 394, 395, 413,
467, 475.
Dravya-guga- Karma, ' substance-quality-movement/ 191,
193, 246, 247, 369, 370, 385, 387, 388, 390, 402, 406,
413, 467, 474, 477.
Puhkha, pain, 192, 257.
pvaita, ' duality/ 47-49, 172.
Dvan-dvam, ' two and two ' ; pairs ; opposites ; the relative ;
the opposed; struggle; war, 158, 173, 178, 179, 199*
200, 280, 297, 298, 400.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 519
Dvandv-atita, ' beyond duality ' ; the transcendent ; the
Absolute, 139.
Dvesha, hate, 233-4, 239-41, 266.
Dvy-arjuka, ' di-atom/ 389.
Eka, ' one,' 284.
Ek-akaram, ' one-formed ' ; uniform ; never-changing form ;
partless, 263.
Eshana, ambitious effort, ambition, 270.
Etat, 'this/ 41, 119, 191,207,237-8,307-9,312-16,319-22,
332-37, 339, 341, 344, 345, 347, 350, 351, 361, 367, 381,
387-90, 394, 398, 402, 417, 418, 430, 468, 475, 479, 481.
Etat-Na, ' This-Not,' 264.
Evam, ' thus/ 382.
Gandharva, a class of non -human beings or spirits of a high
order, devoted to music, 398, 419.
Garva, arrogance, 270.
Gati, 'going,' movement, 319, 381.
Gauna, ' pertaining to guna or quality (and not to substance)' ;
secondary ; non-essential, 271.
Gayatrl, ' that which protects its utterer,' the most sacred
mantra of the Vedas, an invocation of the Sun, 110-11,
243.
Ghora, violent, vehement, dire, 260.
Gola, ' sphere,' 308.
Guhya, secret, 115.
Guha, 'attribute, property, quality,' 166, 190-93, 238,283,
301-3, 369, 370, 374, 378, 381, 382, 395.
Guru, * heavy, weighty ' ; teacher, 382.
Hala-hala, the deadly venom thrown up at the churning of
the Ocean, in the Purana-legend (symbolical of the Hate,
Inseparable from the struggle for existence in the Ocean
of Life), 461.
Hamsa, i.e., aham sab, ' I am that ' ; the swan ; the sun ; the
jiva, 210, 323.
Hetu, reason, cause, motive, 247, 297, 300.
Ichchha, ' desire, wish/ 56, 167, 169, 189, 193, 236, 239, 255,
266, 310, 317, 318, 367, 402.
520 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
, ' this/ 41, 208, 382, 402.
Ida-pingala-sushumna, names of three principal nerves not
yet clearly identified ; but probably ida means the chief
motor nerves and pingala the chief sensor-nerves ;
sushumna may stand for the spinal canal and correspond-
ing hollows in the other nerve-tubes and nerve-cells in
which desire plays, 250.
Indriya, sensor or motor organ, 284, 458.
Istita-deva, the * beloved god, 1 the deity who is the object of
devotion, 407.
Ishvara, ' ruler ' ; the Ruler of a cosmic system, or planet, or
kingdom, etc. ; a Jiva who has passed on to the nivrtti-
marga, and so become a ruler of his sheaths, 49, 160,
169-172, 241, 328, 412, 429, etc.
Ijtharn, ' such/ 382.
Jada, 'inert 1 ; unconscious; matter, 173, 193,280,400,432.
Jagat, ' that which goes or moves incessantly ' ; the world, 265.
JagraJ, ' waking/ 285, 344.
Jagrat-svapna-sushupti, waking-dreaming-slumbering, 344.
Jala, water, same as Apah, 411.
Jati, ' gens/ genus, type, species, 285.
Jati-flyur-bhoga, ' genus (species, type) life-period experi-
ence, 333, 360.
Jiva or Jiv-atma, 'a living being '; an individual ego ; one
evolving unit or line of consciousness, 3, 6, 7, 12, 22, 33,
39, 45, 48, 50, 56, 81, 152, 158, 159, 160, 163, 179-182,
209, 210, 213, 263, 315, 321, 324, 331, 360, 378, 399, 431,
466, 480, 482.
Jiva-atom, 472, 477, etc.
Jiva, radius, 308.
Jiva-kosha, the core-body of the jiva, the jiva-cell, the jiva-
capsule, (the auric egg), 23, 345.
Jlvan-mukta, liberated, emancipated, freed (while still in the
body, from narrownesses, bigotries, superstitions, sectari-
anisms; illiberalities, etc., as well as from doubt and fears
in respect of the soul's ' immortality ' and infinity ; also,
it may be, from the bonds of the flesh in the mystic sense
of ability to consciously separate and reunite the subtler
body and the denser), 459.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 521
JSana, 'cognition, knowledge/ 56, 167-69, 189, 193, 213,
214, 215, 239, 261, 285, 316-18, 402, 453, 461, 474.
JSana-bhakti-karma, ' knowledge devotion-works/ 453, 493.
Jnana-ghana, ' compressed, compacted, composed of know-
ledge/ 139.
JSSna-ichchha-kriya, 'cognition-desire-action/ 55-7, 167-70,
189, 193, 239, 246, 247, 251, 255-7, 269-71, 304, 318,
370, 406, 417, 476, 493, etc.
Jfiana-yoga Bhakti-yoga Karma or Kriya-yoga, ' the paths
of knowledge-devotion-works/ 255, 447.
Jnana-vairagya-bhakti, ' illuminated vision-detached aloofness-
love of the supreme in all/ 67, 458
Jnanendriya, sensor organ, 240.
Jneya, 'cognisable, knowable/ 173.
Kaivalyam, ' One-ness/ ' sole-ness/ realisation that all Life
is but One, in the Life of the One Self, that there is
no-other-than-I, 116, 328, 457.
Kala, 'the mover'; time; death; the black, 88, 147, 301,
316, 317, 318.
Kal-atita, 'beyond or transcending time/ 263.
Kal-atita-ta, 'transcendence of time ' ; timelessness, 88.
Kalpa, ' arrangement ' ; a cycle, 316, 492.
Kamandalu, a water-bowl, 323.
Kanda-Jnana, partial knowledge, knowledge of particulars, 285,
Kararjta, ' means of doing ' ; instrument, 246, 284, 410.
Kararja, ' cause/ causal, 219, 251, 297, 300, 344, 420.
Karana-sharlra, ' the causal body ' (which is the cause or the
origin of the others), 416, 435, 439.
Karma, movement ; action ; human action regarded as meri-
torious or sinful and resulting in pleasure or pain to the
doer, 48, 51, 191, 193, 229, 257, 369, 379, 380, 382, 392,
467, 474, 486.
Karma-yoga, the path of works, 255.
Karm-endriya, motor organ, 239.
Karta, ' doer, actor/ 297, 299.
Karya, ' the to-be-done ' ; work ; act, effect, 283, 299.
Kdrya-vimukji, a particular kind of liberation, or yoga-
accomplishment, 453.
K ash ay a, ' bitter ' worry, melancholy reverie, " fit of the
blues/' 239.
522 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Kevala-ta, same as kaivalya, 116.
Khyati, understanding, perception, 165.
Kinnara, a variety of non-human or sub-human spirits,,
(possibly also some now extinct race of high anthro-
poids), 419.
Kosha, c sheath, case ', passim.
Karma, succession, 310.
Kriya, action, 56, 167-70, 189, 193, 239, 260, 299, 301, 316,
403, 474.
Kriy-advaita, realization of the one-ness of all life by means
of philanthrophic and self-sacrificing deeds, 493.
Kriya-yoga, the path of works ; a special yoga discipline, 447
Krtya, duty, application, practice, 285.
Krtyd, an elemental, a spirit-force artificially created, 263.
Krfi, volition, conation, effort, innervation, 229, 266, 270.
Ksharjia, moment, 316.
Kshetra, * field ' ; field of consciousness ; the body wherein
consciousness manifests, 283, 285, 333.
Kushmanda, a low order of non-human spirits, 419.
Kuta-stha, ' rock-seated ' ; motionless ; eternal, 164, 302.
Kuta-stha-satta, ' rock-seated being ', changelessness, 35.
Kuta-stha-nifya, * rock-seatedly permanent ' ; changelessly
eternal, 161.
Laghu, ' light ' (the opposite of heavy), small, 382.
Lakshana, ' sign/ mark ; characteristic ; attribute, 371.
Lakshya, object, 285.
Laukika-drshtl, the common physical (or worldly) vision,
(or view), 285.
Laya, ' dissolution ' ; mergence, 238-41, 258.
Laya-sthdna, the junction point or place of disappearance,
the point of break or gap of consciousness, between
waking and dreaming, for instance, 283.
Llia, ' play/ pastime ; 207, 221, 325, 328, 491.
Linga-deha, type-body f ; etheric double, 433.
Lobha (' love '), greed," 257.
Loka, ' light ' (luminous) ; ' visible f ; world ; plane, 309, 399.
Macja, ' pride/ 258.
Mafjana, ' maddener,' Cupid, 258.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 525
Madhya, * medium,' middle, 306, 312.
Macjhyfima, the sound of the astro-mental plane, 250.
Maha-bhuta, ' great-being,' primal elements of matter, 390,
411, 446.
Mahfl-kalpa, ' a great cycle/ 376.
Mahd-kdrana-sharira, the great causal body/ the budcjhic
body, 326.
Mahfl-kflsha chitt^-k^sha chida-kasha, the space of the
physical senses, the space of the mind, and the space of
the Universal Consciousness, 398.
MahSn-fltma, the great self as universal mind, 174, 213, 264,
283, 290, 291, 378, 428.
Mahan-purusha, ' great men/ 352.
Mahfl-samvit, ' great or universal consciousness/ 400.
Mahfl-sat, the great existence, 401.
Mahd-shil-sattd ' great rock-being ' ; rockboundness, 484.
Mahat, the ' great ' universal mind, the principle of pure
(because unmotived by selfish egoism) all-comprehending
reason, 45, 160, 174, 213, 271, 282, 289, 290, 291, 360 f
378, 382, 428, 432, 438.
Mahat-tattva, ' the great-element ' ; same as the 3<Ji-tattva, and
possibly so called because, as the primordial root, it
includes in its greatness all the others, 376, 382.
Mahat-bucjdhi, 174, 256, 285, 438,
Mahfl-v^kya, ' great sentence/ logion, 85.
Maha-vidyd, * great knowledge ' ; perfect knowledge ; wis-
dom ; a name of an aspect of Shakti, 241-3, 246.
Mala, stain, dirt, 258.
Mama, mine, 402.
Mflna, ' measure ' ; mental measuring, weighing, inference or
reasoning ; thinking in high measure of oneself, pride r
404.
Manab, Manas, 'mind/ 56, 57, 142-5, 159-60, 213-5, 246,
260, 261, 264, 266, 280, 282, 283, 285, 288, 289,
432, ^ 440.
Manana, ' mentation/ revolving in mind, 263.
Manas-bm&hi, 285, 289, 290.
Mancjya, ' dullness, slowness/ 381.
Mano-maya-kosha, sheath or body of astral or emotional or
lower mental matter, 256.
524 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Mantra, ' that which, being thought of ' protects, 1 a charm, an
incantation, 263, 285, 377.
Manvanfara, ' the interval between two manus, the period of
the reign of a Manu, 438.
Mati, intelligence, 290, 291.
Mdtr, * matter ' ; measure ; ' matrix ' ; that which measures,
out, i.e., manifests spirit, 173, 233, 234.
May3, ' that which is not ' ; illusion ; the Energy or force of
illusion, which causes the illusory appearance of a suc-
cessive world-process, 49, 50, 51, 87, 145, 159-61, 218,
222, 223, 233, 234, 237, 238, 239, 324, 350, 427.
Maya-shabalam, ' tinged with maya,' 160.
Mithyfc, ' mythical ' ; false, 183, 285, 290.
Moha, perplexing, ' fainting, 1 257-260.
Mohana, ' perplexer,' fascinator, enthraller, enchanting, 258.
Moksha, \ ' emancipation, liberation, deliverance ' from the
Mukti, / pains of the world-process, 14, 53, 76, 116, 195,
214, 241, 254, 282, 315, 447-9 482.
Mudha, ' perplexed. 1 260.
Mukhya, ' facial,' chief, principal, in the forefront, at the
head, 371.
Mukhya-karana, ' principal cause.'
Mukta, ' the freed, the liberated,' 17, 228, 315, 355, 493.
Mula-prakrti, 'root-nature'; primal matter, 41, 111, 113,
119, 159, 172, 173, 179, 182, 189-94, 238-45, 246, 263,
302, 315, 323, 332-4, 338, 347, 368-70, 379, 400, 401,
406, 407, 418-25, 437, 458, 467-73, 476, 481, 485.
Mula-sutra, root-principle, 285.
Mumuksha, ' the desire for deliverance,' 18.
Murta, having form, 285.
Murti, form, 290.
Na, ' not ' ; negation, 191, 238, 302, 316.
Naga, an order of non-human spirits : also, serpent, elephant,
etc.,, 419.
Nama-rupa, name and form,, 285.
Nflna, the many which are not,' 173.
Nareshvara, ' lord of men,' 171.
Naya, theory, rule, principle, 285.
Nifra, sleep, 257, 266.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 525
Nija-bo<Jha, * self-knowledge,' apperception, 424.
Nimajjana, ' immersion, mergence/ 319.
Nimitta, * condition,' reason, cause, instrumental cause pur-
pose, 147, 246, 299.
Nir-anjana, ' stainless, 1 140.
Nir-guna, ' attribute-less/ 148, 218, 242, 254.
Nir-mala-tva, ' freedom from impurity,' 257.
Nirvana, the extinction of the selfish divine, 440.
Nirodlia, ' control, 1 ' restraint,' ' inhibition,' 162, 214, 285.
Ni-rupa, ' form-less,' 140.
Nir-upadhi, ' without receptacle,' without a sheath, limitation,
or distinction.
Nir-vikSra, * immutable,' changeless, 140.
Nir-vishesha, * without speciality,' without distinguishing
marks, 140.
Nishchaya, ' certainty,' 270.
Nishedha, negation, forbiddal, 199.
Nish-kriya, ' actionless/ 140.
Nitya, 'permanent,' 28, 161, 211.
Nitya-pralaya, constant dissolution,' 212.
Nitya-sarga, ' constant creation or emanation/ 212.
Nivrtti, 'inversion/ Reversion'; return; renunciation, 171.
Nivrtti-mflrga, 'the path of renunciation/ 211, 417.
Niyama, fixed rule, vow, 260, 279.
Niyati, ' the fixed/ 'destiny/ necessity, 217, 228.
Nyflya, ' leading, guiding ' ; logic ; justice ; a school of
philosophy, 90, 261, 271, 287, 298, 389, 394, 399, 410, 467.
Pacja, ' position/ ' foot ' ; word, term ; concept, notion, 404.
Pacj-artha, ' the meaning of a word/ thing, 33, 467.
Paksha, ' wing, side/ 306.
Pane hi -kar ana, ' quintuplication/ 377.
Pard and Aparfl-Prakrti, the Transcendental and the Empiri-
cal Nature (of the'self), 263.
Para-3para-jati species, 468.
Para-Brahman, * supreme or absolute Brahman/ 114 ? 152.
Para-chchanda, subject to the will or caprice of another, 228.
Par-4hfna, dependent on another, 228.
Pard-jflti> summum genus, 468.
Param, ' supreme,' highest, 152.
526 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Param-flnu, ' extreme or smallest atom/ 398, 435, 471, 475.
Param-atmS, the ' Supreme Self,' Brahman, the Absolute, 35,
84, 152, 160, 243, 307, 315, 320.
Paramirthika-drshti, the metaphysical or transcendental point
of view, 228.
Para-prakrfi, ' highest or supreme nature, 1 245, 263.
Parartha, ' for another's sake/ altruism, 183.
Para-samvit, * supreme or absolute consciousness/ 139.
Para-samanya, highest genus, 285.
Para-tantra, at the order, or the disposal, or the service of
another, 228.
Para-vasha, under the control, or at the mercy of another,
228. f
Parshva, ' side or flank/ 306.
Pari-bhramana, ' moving all round/ 322.
Parimana, ' measure all round/ magnitude ; size, 332, 333.
Parinama, change, transformation, 9.
Parinama-vacja, ' the theory or doctrine of transformation/
viz., of the formation of the world by gradual change and
evolution (by the interaction of Purusha and PrakrtO, 9,
10, 222.
Parinami-nitya, ' changingly permanent/ everlasting, 161.
Paroksha, ' away from the eye ' ; indirect ; mediate ; hidden,
41.
ParO-rajas, ' that which is beyond all action and motion/ 401.
Pashyanti, the sound of the causal plane, 250-1.
Pindanda, small egg, a living organism or human unit, 411.
Pingala, a nerve, 250.
Pradhana, ' the substrate, or reservoir ' ; matter, Prakrti ;
chief, main, principal, 173, 432.
Prajna, ' intellect/ 291.
Prakasha, light, clear appearance. 257, 260.
Prakasha-chan-chalya-avarana, light-restlessness-v e i 1 i n g/
260.
Prakasha-pravrtti-moha, ' illumination-action-perplexity/ 260.
Prakasha-pravrtti-niyama, ' light-movement-fixed rule/ 260.
Prakhya-pravrtti-sthiti, clear knowledge restless activity
steady clinging, 260.
Prakrta-jnana, knowledge by common physical means,
ordinary knowledge, 285.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 527
Prakrt, ' natural ' ; the name of a vernacular (as distinguished
from Samskrt, ' the perfected ' language), 53, 60, 78.
Prakrti, ' nature/ ' that which is made or makes,' matter,
9, 11, 41, 50, 115, 116, 174, 199, 203, 235, 236, 243, 245,
280, 283, 285, 432, 474.
Prakrtika, ' natural/ 371.
Prakrii-laya, * mergence into Nature/ 457.
Pralaya, ' reabsorption/ the dissolution of a world, 145, 202,
208,212,214,236, 316,
Pramada, carelessness, madness, inadvertence, 257, 258.
Prana-maya-kosha, ' sheath or body of etheric or vital or
biotic matter/ 256.
Prana, ' breathing/ vital-force, nerve-force, 240, 244, 255.
Pranava, the sacred sound or word Aunt ; (pronounced Om),
1C9, 117, 233.
Prapancha, ' the quintuplicated/ ' the multiplied/ the multi-
farious, 192.
Prasacja, placidity/ cheerfulness, calmness, 285.
Prasarana, extending, stretching out, 380.
Prasarpana, ' moving forth on all sides/ spreading, 322.
Pratyag-atma, * the inward or abstract Self/ the universal
Self or Ego, 33-8, 43, 81, 84, 111, 113, 152-162.
167-173, 179, 189-93, 237-47, 263, 296, 302, 308, 315, 320,
323, 332-4, 338, 355, 362, 369, 370, 379, 400, 401, 406,
418-29, 437, 467-82, 485, 489, 490.
Pratibha, insight, 285.
Pratika, symbol, nature-force as symbol of the supreme, 263,
285.
Pratima, image, 285.
Prati-patti, approach, apprehension, perception, 33.
Pratishecjha, denial, prohibition, refutation, 199.
Pravrtti, 'pursuit/ engagement, 171, 257, 260, 491.
Pravrtti -m^rga, * the path of pursuit/ 211, 417.
Pratyabhijna, recognition, 266.
PratyShara, ' drawing back/ abstraction, 474.
Pratyak-chetana, inturned consciousness, subjective con-
sciousness, 161.
Pratyaksha, direct or immediate cognition, presentative
knowledge, intuition, perception, 31, 32, 33, 266.
Pratyavamarsha, recognition, 266.
528 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE
Pratyaya, idea, thought^ belief, faith, 285.
Pratyay-Snupashyatn, ' awareness of psychoses,' appercep-
tion, 424.
Prayatna, effort, volition, conation, 228, 271.
PrayOga, practice, application, employment, bringing into
use, 285.
Prayojana, ' motive/ 53, 300.
Pjrthaktva, separateness, 279.
Pjrthivi, ' earth ' ; the densest root-element of matter known
to present humanity, 376, 382, 389, 411.
Prlti-apriti-visha(Ja, ' pleasure-pain-depression/ 260.
PumSn, ' masculine,' person, subject, 33.
Purusha, the Sleeper in the body * ; man ; Spirit, Self,
9, 10, 11, 33, 41, 50, 116, 203, 228, 235, 352, 474.
Purusha- Kara, 'manly effort/ will (as opposed to destiny),
liberty (enterprise as opposed to necessity), free
initiative 228.
Raga, * tinge/ stain, colouring, love, affection ; (also a musical
tune), 234, 239, 257, 266, 282.
Rajas, ' movability/ one of the three attributes of Mula-
prakrti ; passion ; stain ; blood; colour; dust, etc., 174,
190-4, 238-9, 379, 384.
Rajasa, ' belonging to or made of the element or principle of
rajas,; activity/ 18, 284.
Rahasya, ' belonging to solitude/ sectet, 115,
Rakshas, an order of non-human beings ; a kind of microbe or
bacillas, 264.
Rakshasa, allied to or composed of rakshas, a race of human-
beings (Atlanteans ?), 264.
Rasasvada, ' tasting the sweets ' of imagination, building
castles in the air, pleasant reverie, 239.
IJju, * right ; ' di-rect/ straight, 322.
Rshi, one who has 'seen 1 or 'arrived' at the Supreme,
315,458.
Sa<J-asat, existent-and-non-existent ; false ; illusory, 82,
183, 234.
Satfharana, 'common/ 371.
Sdijharana-nimitta, ' common cause/ 298.
Sa<J-ghana, ' compacted being/ 139.
GLOSSARY OF SAMSKRT TERMS 529
Sa-guna, ' with attributes/ 160, 218, 242, 253.
Sa-guna Brahma, ' Brahma with attributes, 1 i.e., Pra-
yag-Stma possessed of three attributes, Sat-Chid-
Anantja, in contrast with its opposite MuJaprakrti and its
three attributes, Rajas- Sattva-Tamas, 170.
Saha-bhava, ' co-existence,' 305.
Saha-chara, ' co-movement/ 305. 
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